AN ACCEPTABLE GIFT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 49, 27 February 1901, Page 5

AN ACCEPTABLE GIFT.

LONDON, February 26

, English visitors at Mentone are feehding forty thousand lemons to the British troops in South Africa.

TION. —COPYBIGHT.]

WAR NOTES FROM

LONDON

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, January 18. NEW ZEALAND).RS AT BHENOSTJ.K KOP. A YEOMAN'S TRIBUTE. Even in the press of Parliamentary reports, 1 am pretty certain that few ot the New Zealand papers would deem the following tribute to Colonel Cradpck's gallant little band, which is from the pen of a Yeoman serving with General Paget's column, uninteresting. He write-:■ — They went into action at half-past five in the morning and came out long after nightfall with 20 per cent, shotsix killed and 2-i woundedHad they fallen back from the inferno in front our guns would have been in danger. But they never faltered. The more withering the fire, the more desperately did they hold to a determination not to yield an inch. Erasmus and V'iljoen gave battle il'om a position which was in itself both a fortress and a trap—not a huge kopje, but a rock-crested ridge with a gentle slope of easy country leading to it. A chaplain with the Bushmen aptly described this slope "the broad, open path that led to hell.'' Behind the ridge were kopjes aud boulders, and on either side of it the Boers had concealed their flanks in THE BEST POSSIBLE COVER. Anticipating attack from what seemed to the British to be their most vulnerable point ihe enemy concentrated in rear of the centre of the ridge and waited for the "Khakis" to charge up the tempting- slope. The Boers next ran two guns out on the ridge and fired a couple of shells w*ith black powder at some of General Plumer's men three miles away. They limbered up quickly and galloped back, but before they were out of sight the New Zealanders were cantering into action, bent, if possible, upon taking the enemy's two field pieces. A mile or so from the crest the squadron dismounted, the horses were led to cover, and on went the com-; pany, well extended. j They got to. within six hundred ! yards of the i'oe, when murderous vol-1 leys were poured into them. The men j fell flat, being without cover, rind re-j plied as fast as they could pull back j their bolts and ..hove the cartridges home. j Our artillery came into action on an I eminence in rear and to the left of the New Zealanders. The infantry were away on the right, Bushmen and Yeomanry on the left. The Boer gunners replied with great spirit to our artillery, unmasking a Long Tom, a couple of l!J-pounders, a O-pounder high velocity Krupp, a pom-pom and Maxims.

At times sheets of lead swept over the New Zealanders, whose officers were bobbing about, seeing to it that all was going as well as could be expected. One by one the ofllcers were bowled over until in the end their dashing leader, Colonel Cradock, was left alone.

And so the fight raged. With rifles running hot and ammunition running out, there were periods when the fire abated, but it would suddenly burst into a furious rattle, telling that the struggling ammunition carriers HAD BEEN SINGLED OUT. When our ambulance waggons came forth to gather the wounded, the "Cease fire" was at once passed ajong, but the silence was complete on our side only. Many of the enemy plugged away, aud a few, more villainous than the rest, sent bullets through the canvas sides of the ambulances. Late in the afternoon the Boers made a bold attempt to break through in the direction of the guns. They advanced far enough to feel the effects of some rounds of case-shot fired from a 15-pounder. They came on no farther. The New Zealanders were firing volleys at ten o'clock at night, and the Mausers were still barking back. In the morning, however, the Dutch had gone. The fight teemed with incident, gruesome, humorous, or pathetic. A trooper taking cover behind a small ant-hill,' put his grey felt hat on a smaller ant-hill some few feet off. The hat Avas hit five times. From its riddled condition it might have beer hit fifty. r xl . ■ Trooper Goldstone, resting on his elbows, was shot through the right wrist and bandolier, whence the bullet, turned and flattened by a cartridge, flew to his breastbone, inflicting a great bruise, and then fell beside him to the ground. Goldstone said he did not feel the wound in his wrist, but was knocked insensible by the blow in the chest. A New Zealand farrier, a man of giant, build, was mortally wounded above the groin. He went on firing, saying that was the only way he could forget the pain. Another./thick-set young fellow, now lying in the Yeomanry Hospital at Pretoria, was shot through the shoulder. He rolled over, swore, and then crawled slowly away out of the firing Hue. Having gone some twenty yards a second ball took him in the calf of the right lefr. Then he rose, and swore defiantly that no Boer bullet could stop him. As he stood, a third ball grazed his elbow, and next moment, forgetting Ills woiunds, he was sprinting down the slope for dear life. A Victorian, whose bandolier was empty, rose on his knees to watch one of our gunners working a Maxim. He was marked by a Boer, and shot through the head., dead. From behind his ant-hill a, New Zea.ander could see the crown of a Dutchman's hat. To get one home, he

risked a standing shot; but the Boer i was too quick, and down went the Ma ori lander, stunned, but not hurt. The bullet struck his bandolier, exploded two cartridges, -hid glanced off. Captain l.otton, in charge of the Pompoms, had his attention drawn to a green bush, from which bullets were- coming at intervals with rare precision. "An old sniper," he said. "All right, I'll chew him np!" An entire belt of twenty-live Pompom shells was emptied into the bush in the space of fifteen seconds. Next morning an examination of the snot was made. Buried in the loose earth were fragments of a rifle, pieces of tweed and leather, and other evidence, pruesome enough, that the Vickers-Maxim had done its work. Peculiarly interesting, too, was an insnection of the line of rocks behind which the Boers had la-n. Chinned and suotted they looked —themi.'. nroT-iiripitt of ihem —ns though a mason had been at work with H chisel. Beneath, on +h° ground, yon mig-lit hove venVoned v>~ t^p pound the wpiVM of flf-fWie-"' bidWs. AxsurerPv +!.<*• N<-v- /"p^nderp W< •1-,,-ir Ti'-n-1' 'n this, their hardest and greatest rVbt. DE WET TN DTSO.KACE. For tho sake of De Wet himself, it is to be hoped that he had nothing to do with the flogging and shooting of the British subject who was one o( the three agents of the Peace Committee captured by the Boers and taken to De Wet's laager, near LjWiley. Lord Kitchener's telegram is open to misconstruction, and some people here have come to the conclusion that his statement "by De Wet's orders" only refers to the flogging of two ex-burghers, and that the man shot was murdered by some miscreant in his commando of guerillas. Let US hope this is so, for De Wet has hitherto shown himself an enemy worthy of : respect, and none of those who have been captured and released by this wily Boer commander have raised their voices against him. But if he was responsible for the shooting of the peace envoy he has placed himself in '„" position which means that if caught he will be treated in a fashion very different to the manner in which Cronje and other captivity leaders are being treated. Id any ease the proceedings at. his laager are a gross violation of the rules accepted by civilized nations for the conduct of the relations between belligerents. So far as ihe is concerned he must now be considered not as a guerilla chief, but as I the head of a gang of bandits. That iDe Wet ihotild deliberately place him- ! self and his men outside the pale of civilization is passing strange. 1 cannot think that it is his intention lo w-ige war on the lines of mere banditti. If he does so there will be bloody deeds done in South Africa. If De <Vet does intend to pursue the line sug-rested by the Lindley laager outrage it will be a case of kill or^ be killed foi the men on both sides. i.-iW. personally, I prefer to believe that Christian De Wet has no desire to fignt otherwise than honourably till death or eaptuie brings It's brilliant guerilla career t<_ &n end. pur leader writers may call <.ri their gods to witness that De Wet's continual ion ot the strife is wickedly f'-'lt-l', etc.. but ..o long as the Boer leader does not depart from the legitimate methods of warfare we must In our hearts admit that he is I only doing what we ourselves should j rio if our country was in tbe hands of j the invader. ! Whether De Wet continues the fight on one line or another makes no difference to the fact that he must be rounded up, and that that cannot be done until Lord Kitchener has a sufficiency of mounted troops to surround him. The general state of the operations at the present time show painfully clearly thattherearenothalf enough" mounted men at the. Com-mander-in-Chief's disposal. Before the rising of Parliament it was officially stated that there were over two hundred thousand troops. From the two hundred thousand deductions must be made for auxiliaries not strictly com- ! batants. Of the combatant troops by far the greater part are the infantry, 1 with the. Field Artillery. These arms ■ cannot be used for the pursuit of the Boers, and are now for the most part employed as garrisons for the towns and posts on the long lines of communication. The mounted arms— cavalry, mounled infantry and Horse ' Artillcrj —must have been reduced by the long campaign far below their normal strength. Some of the colonial contingents have gone home, and others are to go as soon as the new contingents arrive to take their places. The drafts lately promised from this country will hardly suffice to fill up the thinned ranks to their standard numbers. This reduced mounted force is all that Lord Kitchener has for the hard task of hunting for parties of Boers who can play hide-and-seek over an area nearly as large as France and Spain together. A few thousand men have lately .been raised in Cape Colony —many of them being members of some of the old colonial corps which were disbanded a few months ago. Capetown has also raised several thousand Town Guards. The most recent telegrams from Capetown not only repeat the long-expressed hope that more mounted men will be sent out from Home, but add that no further considerable supply of mounted men can be obtained in the colony itself. The Boers never seem to do much harm unless they are able to catch a British party unprepared. Against the settled garrisons they produce no effect; except that of keeping them on the alert and concentrated. But from British mounted troops they keep away, retreating without serious fighting, except where the nature of 1 the ground admits of an ambuscade, or offers a position from which a safe retreat can be made after a good deal of shooting from cover. The report from Kimberley. that the Boers at their quarters near Modder Elver were "enjoying luxurious fare," hardly looks like a confirmation of the theory that the Boers are starving. Thus, in the" Transvaal and the Orange River Colony the position seems to be that. the British are cooped up iv numbers of posts held by infantry; that except for those posts the country is deserted and bare of food; that the wandering bands of Boers made every part of it outside the British posts unsafe; and that there are not enough British mounted troops to scour the country and hunt clown these Boer parties. There seems no reason why the Boers, once they have resolved upon this sort of life, should not go on with it for a few years- The only argument that can stop them is the bullet, but until Lord Kitchener has a mounted army and can organise a systematic hunt this argument cannot be effectively brought to bear.