A HERO OF EMPIRE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 25 April 1914, Page 3

A HERO OF EMPIRE.

A SOLDIER'S TERRIBLE ORDEAL

From one of those remote outposts of Empire for which one may search iii vain in any ordinary atlas, there comes this week a story that should make a Briton's blood course more warmly through, his veins (says the London correspondent of the Lyttelton Times, writing on March 13). The. calls of the "daily round" which most people have to make in order to keep on good terms j with, landlord and tax collector are apt to make one lose sight of the bravo men who guard the isolated outposts in those outer marches of the King's dominions, and sometimes it is to be feared one forgets that the Empire has still need of men of the old adventurous stamp who made Britons what they are —a world people. Now and then one gets a reminder. There was the case of the gallant (if officially disobedient) Corfield. which, came to remind people of England's neglected duty in Somaliland, and now there comes from the Anglo-Abyssinian frontier of British 'East Africa a belated story of British pluck and endurance which every Briton ought to know by heart. Last summer news came through that Captain Ay liner had been shot dead by Abyssinian raiders. Months after a brief telegram announced that Lieutenant Lloyd Jones had been wounded in an encounter with, elephant hunters, and still more recently the news of Lieutenant Bentinck having been injured in a fight in the north-eastern corner of the Protectorate came to hand. But until this week details have been altogether lacking concerning even the first two cases. CAPTAIN AYLMER'S DEATH. In these the scene was on the extreme northern border of the Protectorate, where tiny garrisons of one white man and a few natives far removed from civilised centres have represented the Empire in wild, practi* cally unadmini6tered regions, among desperate and lawless tribes, exposed to periodical raids of masterless Abys6iniane. In the case of Captain Aylmer, the unfortunate officer met with a mercifully sudden death. With only ten men, he was attacking a band of ivory hunters, who were in position behind rocks, when he was shot dead. With great heroism his Somali corporal then took charge of the operations until the Abyssmians retired, and finally removed his commander's body. The natives carried their captain's corpse for three days, and then buried it—only because they were compelled to do so —in an unmarked grave, in the desolate sunscorched region which knows no law except such as men of his starrm leave comfortable homes in England to administer, or make, or both. NATIVE COWARDICE AND GALLANTRY. Captain Aylmer's end came suddenly '< and was probably painless, but Lieutenant William Lloyd Jones had a less merciful experience. With fifty men of .the King's African Rifles and a field gun, this young officer was j n 60 i e charge of a remote station on Lake Rudolph, about six weeks' march from Nairobi. Rumors reached him of raids by Abyssinians, and he arranged an expedition to find the marauders. What an expedition it was! Two white officers, twenty-five men of the King's African Rifles, a score of camels, and a dozen of the Somali Constabulary. On the fourth day, after many wanderings in the waterless desert, a stockade was found in which a body of raiders, of unknown numbers, was believed to be concealed. It was decided to rush the position. The young officer took with him fifteen of Ms native, soldiers, and marched upon the stockade, which proved to bea circular thorn zareba ten feet high with only one visible entrance or exit. OUTSIDE THE ZAREBA. The little force worked its way to within twenty-five yards of the gateway without molestation, and then the inmates of the zareba were challenged in Abyssinian and bidden to come forth, being told that if they did so their lives would be spared. No answer being given, the bugler sounded the charge. In answer to the bugle call the soldiers rushed forward firing a volley, but at that moment the bugler was hit, while a soldier to the left of the commander was killed. Orders were heard in Abyssinian to shoot the white man, and as Lieutenant Jones reached the gate he dropped, shot through the legs. It was then seen that twelve of the soldiers had retreated, leaving the officer with only three orderlies at the entrance of the zareba entirely at the mercy of the. raiders. The orderlies, attempted to carry their commander off the field, but the latter told them to leave him and rush the %gate. This they did with the greatest gallantry, killing every man inside the zareba.' The wounded lieutenant was then carried to the top of a neighboring hill, and, the rest of the force coming up, camp was formed, and precautions taken against a night attack by any •of the robbers who might have been absent from the zareba. Meanwhile everything was done for the 'wounded that was possible with the limited means at hand, and the little party next day commenced its return to their post at Lake Rudolph. A FEARFUL MARCH. Ten days after the fight an Indian medical assistant arrived after a forced march brer a waterless country, but Lieutenant Jones had been steadily growing worse. One leg became septic, the pain was maddening, and the scanty supply of chloroform began to give out, and it became urgently" necessary to move. Accordingly Lieutenant Jones, accompanied by a "political officer, the Indian assistant and a small escort, commenced a ten days' trek across waterless country. Two days later lockjaw supervened, and with what few drugs were available effor+s were made to relieve the terrible sufferings of the wounded man. Three weeks after the fight the post of Marsabit was reached, but the doctor was absent, so it was determined to send the wounded lieutenant on to Nairobi ' in charge of Captain Dickinson. By this time the sufferings of Lieutenant Lloyd Jones were terrible, and there was no doctor and no anaesthetic left. It was not until forty-three days after he had been hit that the officer and his escort reached the post of Nyeri, where at last he found a doctor and a nurse. For fourteen days all that was possible was done, but in the meantime the muscles had shrunk, and one leg was four inches shorter than the other, rendering Lieutenant Jones a cripple for life. It was not until after having undergone a stretcher journey of over 500 miles^ under the most horrible conditions,' that the wounded man eventu. ally reached Nairobi and a hospital. After tetanus set in he was delirious practically all the time, and the doctor at Nairobi regarded his arrival there alive as almost miraculous. So accustomed are British people to all the resources of medical science, applied instantly with skill and deftness, that they can hardly realise what this young soldier's experience must have been. That Lieutenant Jones lives to tell the tale is truly marvellous. He now lies in the hospital at Nairobi, apparently on the road to recovery. Such is the insufficient record of a little skirmish in Africa which deserves enshrinement among "Deeds that Won the Empire."