HE HAD MET YOUNG ROBERTS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9997, 18 March 1910, Page 4

HE HAD MET YOUNG ROBERTS.

The phlegm of the Englishman, writes Sir H. Lucy, is ever a marvel to more excitable neighbours on the other side of the Channel, who are not capable of imitating it, and fail to understand it, A striking instance camp under my notice the other day. Lunching with an officer, conversation turned upon the Boer war, through whose full duration he had

served. I remarked that, to my mind, the saddest episode in a story where criminal maladministration was rerelieved only by deeds of personal heroism, was the death of Lord Kobert's only son and heir. "Did you chance to meet young Roberts in the campaign?" I asked our host. "Yes," he said. And that was all the reply. A moment later there flashed upon my recollection that he was one of the three young officers who respon* ded to the call of Redvera Buller after the disaster of Colenso. "Will ] any of you volunteer to save the I guns?" The desperate endeavour was ! partly successful. Conan Doyle recalls how two gun teams were taken down, the horses galloping frantically through an infernal fire, each team succeeding in getting back with a gun. Of the three officers, Roberts fell mortally wounded, insisted on j being left to die where he lay, lest he should hamper the others. One of the officers miraculously escaped. The third left on record a modest but graphic account of his experience within a thousand yards of a forest of rifles handled by Boer marksmen. "My first bullet," he said, writing with almost personal affection for his new acquaintance, "went through my left sleeve, and made the joint of my elbow bleed. Next a clod of earth caught me smack on the right arm. Then my horse got one. Then my right leg one. Then my horse another, an 3 that settled us." Yes, as he briefly said, he had chanced to meet Lieutenant Roberts in the campaign. And this was the particular occasion.