SALE EVERY INCH A SOLDIER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 79, 14 March 1936, Page 7

SALE

EVERY INCH A SOLDIER

Death of Major Burgoyne KILLED BY ITALIAN BOMB To at least one man at New Plymouth the death of Major Gerald Burgoyne, reported killed by a bomb dropped from an Italian piano while he was acting as transport officer for the Ethiopian Bed Cross, is far more than sensational cable news. Detective A. Jenvey served, in the Great War under the conynand of Major Burgoyne in the 4th Royal Irish Rifles and he remembers him as a man of strong personality, “every inch a soldier,” with an almost quixotic lovo for animals. “He was not exactly one of tho old school, but he was a firm disciplinarian,” explained Mr. Jenvey. “You must obey orders, but if you did he was satisfied. He was not difficult to serve because he was downright in his speech and he did not alter his decisions. He walked always with ramrod precision and was immaculate in his dress.”

When the regiment was in camp in Ireland, continued Mr. Jenvey, Major Burgoyne kept a pack of about twenty beagle hounds which he took out regularly for his own exercise. “So far as I know he never caught anything except a cold,” remarked Mr. Jenvey. The major on his walks was something of an institution. With his horn to his mouth, his small cocked hat on his head and his short trousers, ho was a well-known figure.

Major Burgoyne was invariably and uncompromisingly a champion of dogs. Besides his own beagle hounds ho had virtual ownership of a whole tribe of mongrels. These unkempt and mangy creatures were always wandering about camp, poking their heads into the garbage tins. But on one day every year they were rounded up by tho troops and penned in an enclosure. The major sent for the collector of taxes ad registered every one of them.

Another incident which illustrated Major Burgovne’s attitude to animals was related by Mr. Jenvey. Once he saw a carter’s horse slip and fall as it dragged a load up a slope to the barracks. The carter did not unharness it but began to flog it unmercifully, although the poor beast could not get up. The major looked out of a window and saw its plight. He went out at once and strode up to the carter, very stiff, with his red moustache bristling. Seizing the man by the scruff of the neck he beat him with his cane until he yelled for mercy. Then he rang up the police and put the man in charge for cruelty.

Mr. Jenvey saw almost the same thing happen one day when the regiment was on the march. A man had struck a horse roughly. Without hesitation the major caught him and beat him in front of the whole company. “He never cared who was there if an animal was being ill-treated,” said Mr. Jenvey. “If any soldier in his command raised his boot to a stray dog the major clapped him in the guard room at once for cruelty.” .Major Gerald Achilles Burgoyne was born in 1874 and was educated at Rugby Public School. He joined the 3rd Dragoon Guards in 1896 and in 1910 left them for the 4th Royal Irish Rifles. Besides serving in the Great War he fought in the African War. When he resigned from the army he went to live at Somerset. At the outbreak of the Abyssinian war he at once offered his services to the Emperor Haile Selassie and was entrusted with the organisation of a Red Cross unit.