STORIES OF WAR FLAGS

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4407, 13 July 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

STORIES OF WAR FLAGS

The flags of the army no longer play the very important part they formerly did in time c f war (observes Robert Mackray in an article in the “Royal”). Like everything else calculated to attract the attention of an enemy, they have disappeared from the . field, and are seen no more except on parades. The last great war in which the flags were carried was the Crimea, hut the Queen s colour and the black regimental colour of the, 58th (now 2nd Battalion Northamptonshire) waved over them at Laing s Nek in the Boer war in 1881, Here is a tale of the Royal Scots: The regiment,- then known as the “Royal Regiment,” was hotly engaged at Steenbirk in 1692—a battle, the incidents of which are not generally known, but which is imperishably associated with devotion to the flag. The men. who were commanded by Sir Robert Douglas, wore bard pressed—so much , Bio that the first battalion had lost one of its colours, Douglas, who was as courageous as a lion, had given many proofs of his extraordinary personalcourage. and constantly cheered on his wearied men to greater exertions. In the press and confusion of the struggle he suddenly saw the lost colours on the other side of the hedge. There it waved in the hands of the enemy, and the sight maddened him. Plunging through a gap in the hedge, he leaped into the thickest of "the ranks of the foe beat them back tp. right and left and in front of him, slew the French officer who was carrying the captured colour, and, with a. mighty effort, threw it over the hedge to iiis own men. The enemy closed around him, Pul again he beat them off, only tp fall, however, when, he was in the act of re-passuig tho hedge.

A somewhat different, blit hardly less splendid, story is told of a private of the Bth Light, Dragoons (now Hussar,s), of the name of Michael Maneely. .One of the standards of his regiment was in his care at the battle of Bousbeck, during the campaign in Holland, in 1794. These were the days of terrible hand-to-hand encounters, when soldiers ,had to stand up tp each other—not of long-range firing and of Smokeless powder, such as we have now, with the troops on either side aa "invisible” as possible. Maneely, as befits an Irishman, was in the thick of the fray, hearing alpft his standard. He was a conspicuous object, and naturally came in for a good deal of attention at the hands of the enemy. In the course of the engagement he was wounded several times, and his hors e was killed under him- Lying on the ground, h* still clung to his flag, but he was sore spent from loss of blood and all the travail of the battle. He felt that it would soon be over so far as he was concerned—but what was to be done with the standard P The poor braye fellow, half-delirious with pain, but, perhaps, with something of the madman’s strength coming to him in that supreme moment, dug a hole in the garth and buried the flag as in a grave. Then h e fainted, and when oonisciouncfcs returned found, himself a prisoner—put the standard was saved frpm being taken. The thrilling stories of our war flags are not all attached to the battlefield. In Norwich Cathedral there hangs a Set of colours, with a singularly heroic story, though it is not a story cf war. The flags are those of. the 54th Regiment (now 2nd Battalion Dorset). The regiment was on the ocean in the transport Sarah Sands. The ship caught fire, and th P colours—those now in Norwich Cathedral—were rescued from the burning vessel with the greatest difficulty. The flags were fastened against the epd of the saloon, which was sp full of smoke that it was almost impossible to move in it. Two lieutenants tried to enter to get the colours, hut they were beaten back by the smoke, Then the quartermaster of the ship, wrapping his head in a wet cloth, rushed into the saloon with a hatchet. Moving the cloth a little from his face, he succeeded in cutting uown the flags, but had no sooner done so than the smoke overpowered him, and he swooned away. Several attempts to rescue him were made, and finally a private of the name of Wills got both him and the colours from the room.