AN EX-WELLINGTON MAN'S ADVENTURES.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 128, 31 May 1900, Page 2

AN EX -WELLINGTON MAN'S ADVE NTURES.

Corporal A. W. Estall (formerly of the D Battery, Wellington), and now in the 13ih Field Battery, Islatal, writes to his friends u,nder date 29th March : — "Just fancy, six weeks on horse flesh, with a quarter pound mealie bread. My word, I have often been hungry, and would have given the world f.or a square, feed. Well, I dare' say you thought we would hare to surrender to the, Boers. It did look black iioav and tlien, especially^ when we were starving, but I don't 1 think we would have given in till they had killed the lot of us. They had two or three good tries, but to no purpose. The fight on the 6th January was the worst we had — some 21 hours' hard slogging, and the gun at which I was on duty fired over 100 shrapnel shells. . . . We saw a lot of Boers crossing our front, and let fly at them with two guns, the shells bursting right amongst them, which xnusb have had a good effect. The next minute the Boer artillery engaged us with eight guns. .We soon got the small guns of the Boers under control, but they turned a Long Tom on to us. His first phell went over us with a scream, and the next one burst in the ground three feet over me. Then a shrapnel shell burst close by my head, the concussion knocking me down. The chaps say that how I escaped was a wonder. We fought in that place for about six hours, and then we had to shift over to .help the 42nd Battalion, and together we slogged away until 10 o'clock at night ; in many placqs we fought hand to hand."