THE BUSHVELDT CARBINEERS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXVIII, Issue 1514, 2 May 1902, Page 3

THE BUSHVELDT CARBINEERS.

" SOMETHING THAT . WOULD SHOCK "THE WORLD." '"* A gentleman recently returned tp Adelaide from South Africa haftc,inen to the. Register a very cirounv.itantial account, of the regrettable, occurrences at Spelonken. It ap*-m-ars that in April of last year a came iotward ana. ottered u.e military authorities £SUO for thu establishment of a colonial cor us, and the Bush Carbineers was the result, The man who paid the £siu usc-d io serve drinks to" the troops, when, he was made captain and donned ilie uniform the soldiers had to salute him, and the sergeant said one uay to his commanding officer : ".It is terrible that) we have to saluteUiat man who the other day wa;, serving us with fizz drinks." 'Hie other oihcer replied : " It is the fortune of war, and must be done." Thecommander of tne first squadron was a man of the nam? of Robinson, who had previously been sergeant in liic Second Westralian Contingent, and who received a commission in the Carbineers. The corps, under Major Lcnehan, went up to Pietersburg, winch was entered by the British ■troops on April 8, lyOl, and remained there as part oi tne garrisun 'of the town. A portion of the Carbineers, under Captain Robinson,was '. sent io Spelonken. After they had been there awhile,Capt. was, ior some reason relieved of his command and replaced by Captain Hunt, who used to be a lieutenant in ihe itith Hussars, and who came to Attica with the Yeomanry. Prior to tiis appointment he helu a civil position in Pretoria as r'.'gistrar, or something oi the kinu. It was shortly aui-r going to Spelonken that Captain hunt was killed. Alter mentioning uie arrest of JUorant ami Hancock and Whitton, the Adelaide man says that a fourth oliicer was arrested, 1 he latter was a young officer who had been on duty at another part, lie was almost brokenhearted when arrested for complicity in the afiair. He protested his innocence,' saying : "i shrink to tell you all that has really taken place, if everything comes out it will shock the world, and unices some step Ls taken we shall be at war with Cermany within a month." 'lbis officer iiad been m charge of the shooting party which executed the captureu Uoers at Mamaluka Kop on August 10. When a consultation was he-id, ne protested to Moii.nt/ and Handcock that they had no right to shoot the prisoner, bttt was told that he was the junior officer, and his business was to obey orders. When ordered to command the firing party ue objected but was persuadeu and intimidated by his older officers to do the deed. At the Court of Inquiry lie was accused of having drawn a revolver and put a bullet through one of the Uoers who was lying on the ground with seven other bullets in his body. But he swore that he fired into the ground, and this statement was accepted by the Court. He was subsequently freed from all Warn*. The Court of Inquiry, which sal for weeks, was presided over by Colonel Carter of the Wiltshire Regiment. The other members comprised Colonel Scott (Cordon Highlanders), a major, and two other officers. The witnesses consisted mostly of men from the Carbineers. The evidence they gave astounded the court, and should it be made public it will rightly destroy all. sympathy for the executed men. The narrator went on to say : " When the unnamed captain, Morant, and Handcock got away into the backblocks they did justas they liked. They took what they wanted and used very effective means to prevent any tattling. The Bush Carbineers were in existence only eight months, and they,made such name for themselves that the corps was disbanded. It was about time. I remember one day three Australians came up to me and said, " What are we to do ? We dare not go back to Australia, for if the people knew that we were in the Bush Veldt Carbineers nobody would recognise us." Personally, I think itwould be better if the whole of the evidence at the inquiry and the court martial were not published. mows GA-IEER. Lieutenant Harry Harford Morant, who was shot at Pretoria, had a career even more varied and exciting than those of most " gentleman adventurers." The son of Vice-ad-miral Digby Morant, who served with distinction at the Crimea War, young Morant was himself intended ior the navy, and, serving his probation as a midshipman, he was. appointed A.D.C to a prominent personage shortly after receiving . his ■ commision. While still a minor himself Morant fell in love with a young lady who was a ward in Chancery, and eloped with her. Being liable to a heavy term of imprisonment for contempt of court, Morant abandoned his career in the navy, and left England for Australia. Landing at Townsville, in North Queensland, he immediately made his way west, .to the limits of the then settlement, and obtained a-situation as storeman and bookkeeper on Dongonally Station, on the Lower Flinders. Here he gained considerable experience among cattle and horses, which was further amplified later on by long droving trips. Having always a strong taste for rhyming, he cultivated this faculty to the full in the bush, until he gained a reputation as a writer of graceful verse from Sydney to Bourketown. On different occasions he was temporarily attached to the staffs of the Bulletin, the Pastoralists Review, the Orange Leader, Coonamble Independent, and Walgett Spectator. Few knew him by his real name, his nom de plume of "The Breaker " being the ti'u assumed by him. As a crack steeplechase rider and polo player he was well known in Sydney. Morant was for some time horse-breaking in the Warrego district of New South Wales, and in 1898 he paid a visit to Victoria, staying some months in I Melbourne. One evening he created

a sensatitn in the dress circle of the Princess' Theatre by joining in an argument between two strangers, and settling it by knocking down the man he disagreed with. At the time the Second South Australian Contingent was formed, Morant was at Renmark, and went to Adelaide with four other residents of that township to enlist. The man's intelligence and obvious experience of martial matters, led Major Reade, the commanding officer, to authorise his-promo-tion to the rank of corporal, and on January-.26, 1900, he left with the contingent in that capacity. Arriving at South Africa, the contingent took part in several engagements and Morant on every occasion showed mmself to be prompt, resourceful and plucky to a fault. A man of excellent manners, Morant possessed the,faculty of maloing friends with everybody he met, and becoming acquainted with Mr Bennet Burleigh the war correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, that gentleman offered him £4O per sionth as assistant correspondent. Morant was accordingly discharged from the South Australian Mounted Rifles on June 20, 1900, and accompanied Mr Burleigh in the fighting to the north of Pretoria, as far as Koomatipoort. At the end of 1800 he parted from the Daily Telegraph's war correspondent, and applied for a commission m Baden-Powell's Constabulary. This however, he failed to obtain, and after spending some weeks in idleness in Pretoria, Morant paid a visit to England. He returned to South Africa a few months later. The Bush Veldt Carbineers was then being formed by a Johannesburg publican named Levy, who subscribed £s</b towards their equipment, and who was appointed quarter-master lieutenant. Major Lenehan had - tlie command of the corps, and on Morant making application he received his commission. Since that time] until the date of his arrest, he had been fighting with the Carbineers around the northern portion of the Transvaal.