GUARDSMEN'S STORIES.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 375, 3 December 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

GUARDSMEN'S STORIES.

Wellington Barracks provided a kind of Mejropolitan Mecca recently for all who had time to spare. Some of the returned Guardsmen “found the duties” at the gate, and there one saw the unfamiliar sight of a sentry in fatigue cap and great coat instead of the smart scarlet and pipeclay which one always ascociates with London’s own particular troops. Beyond this duty, which took bub a few, the men had nothing to do after their parade in the morning—a parado called for the purpose of seeing that each man was shaved and clean—and visitors who gained admittance to the barracks had no difficulty in finding warriors with leisure and inclination to air their personal opinions of war in general and the Soudan in particular. Their stories were very similar, and all agreed as to the “ funk ” they felt before fighting commenced. “It was not exactly funk, you know,” said one man, “ but a kind o’ shaky feeling, and you didn’t want to eat much. But when the firing commenced we didn’t think of anything but killing. “ We’d been chaffed enough when we arrived. The Camerons and some other crushers said as we were a lump of three-yard-long country boys, and weren’t no good ! I reckon we showed ’em different. We made a bit of a dust with OUR LONG-RANGE VOLLEYS.

C ‘l don’t think a single dervish got within 500 yards of our brigade—--General Gatacre’s—and the Sirdar, who stood close to us for some time, and we were, as steady as if we’d been in Hyde Park. “Narrow shaves ?” Well, yes, we did have a few. One of our blokes ’ad a bullet clean through his cartridge-pouch, and it beats me how he wasn’t blown to little bits. An officer, Captain Bagot, was hit in the chin by a ricochet bullet, but he just fell out for a bit, had it dressed, and came back to us. A beltplate saved another of my chums from having a window put in where his dinner ought to have been, for a spent bullet flattened against it—that must have been a ricochet, too, for we kept the dervishes so far off that they had to fire in the air and take the chance of potting our blokes with dropping shots. “ I’ll give the dervishes credit for bravery, though. They didn’t seem to care a bit for death and some of them, when they found it was no use trying to ‘ rush ’ us, had a go at creeping in on all fours. One chap came right on and picked up another who was wounded. He put him across his back and started away, and though a company was firing at him he got safe off, 1 think. “ The first we knew of the Lancer’s charge was seeing a riderless horse come galloping back. We thought it belonged to the Arabs at first, bat when it came nearer we could make out the cavalry saddle, and knew that something had happened. The horse was covered in blood ; a bullet had hit his quarters near the tail, and blood was streaming down his legs, but he galloped, neighing, towards the staff, and formed up among the horses. He scorned glad to find some chums.

“Yes, we bad to kill a lot of the wounded dervishes, and,

TILorGU IT SOUNDS CBUKL, that was all wo could do ; and they deserved it.

“ If the troops had seen what was left of the Lancers who fell in the charge they wouldn’t have left one alive. It was terrible. I was one of the burying party, and honestly it would have been almost impossible to tell they were soldiers if it had not been for the uniform. They were out and carved up as though a troop of hysonas had been among them. “ We got a whole lot of loot in Omdnrman, but it was taken away from us for some reason or other, and when wo got permission to take it the other battalions bad been before us, so we came off badly. We found «onie fowls and pigeons, though, and they weren’t to bo sneezed at after bully-beef and biscuits. I got hold of some dervish coins ” —and he produced a handful of coppers about the size of a two-shilling piece and stamped with an artistic design amid which Arabic svmbols strayed-- 11 1 heard that some blokes silvered them and passed them on the Greek traders for half-dollars, but I guess that isn’t true. The Greeks know a bit mors than that. Did I feel at all bad when I saw men killed ? Well, no, not at the time. An officer of the Warwicks was shot through the neck just as ho was standing behind me, and he dropped with the blood spusting out in streams, but I didn’t seem to feel it much. It was afterwards—then for the rest of the day I didn’t want food or water ; I felt as though I’d give a year’s pay to be away from the smell of blood and tbe dead.”