An Unsuspected Hero.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 128, 26 March 1901, Page 3

An Unsuspected Hero.

The British Museum has .a groat attraction, but the fascination should not tie morel;/ hat of books or MSS. There is a sturdy attendant in the Library, whom Englishmen may bo proud to look upon. This man’s story is one that rivals the grandest deeds of ol f Borne and Greece, and one of two men we shall mention later join in its glory with him. It recalls Leonidas with his three hundred "gainst the myriads of be enemy at Thermopylae this immortal story of llorke’s Diift. I watch men walk into the Library and out again, pjsdbiy speaking shaiply to this attend ml because they have had to wait a minute or two for something, and ! .smile as 1 look at him and think ol in-.: man as compared with him, for this is the ‘ cook’s son’ of the poem, or r liter tile cook himself, the h ave Henry Hook, who acted as hospital coo to the little band at Koike’s 1 >rife, and did enough marvels of gallantry on that night of January, 187'J, to glorify a whole rei'iaieut for ever. The t ilo is too long to recount here in its fulness -how thousanls upon thousands of savage Zulus attacked trie small force at the Drift, and set the camp on fire; how Henry Hook and the two Williams, the two Jones, Bmgcon Buy nolds, and ‘ Parson Smith, led by Broui head, Chard, and others, kepi the whole for"e at bay, and saved all the wounded and rank in tiiat burning hospital, performing prodigies ■ f valour every mi luim doing doz ms of deeds which, every one of them separately, would have gained the V.G—how can one tell fully the wondrous story ? Hook confessed that he could not tola! up how many of the lon ho killed on that f>-arlul night., thnug.i from Known records we can well reckon that • dozens ’ would be needed to count them. But all the world has read how he carried wounded men from the hospital with one arm, whilst he held his Martini rifle at tiro cock, ready for action, in the other; how the brave fellow sto id at tne door with a bayonet, meeting and keeping back the savage Zulus, whilst John Williams got the patients out of the burning room. At least twelve dead bodies were found at that door next day, Zulus who had gone down before ihe unerring lunges of that terrible bayonet of the Gloucester man in the New .South Wales Borders. We shall never know ail the heroism, of that night on the part of these gallant fellow,-, and wo could never estimate it adequately if wo di.-l k-iow. ii„i ..cti.. i „. op i. Williams, and tne Jones who died there, joined the ‘ Deathless Army ’ in both senses, and. left their names to Britain as an imperishable heritage.—Windsor Magazine.