"SCUPPERED" IN CAMP

Patea Mail, Volume XI, Issue 132, 1 March 1886, Page 4

"SCUPPERED" IN CAMP

A Reminiscence of the Boxjdan Wab, Scuppered ” says a wav correspondent, is a word which I had never met with until I came to Stvddm, and its horrible significance is a new experience to British troops. To be “scuppered’ 7 means here to be hacked to pieces in your tent while asleep. How the Han-, dendowas do it nobody but they them- 1 selves can tell. Onr sentries cannot see these savages. Once past om pickets, the redoubts cannot fire on them. On the sand their feet fall without a sound. The nights are of extraordinary darkness, moreover, and they are experts in all the treacheries ol warfare. Silent as shadows, they are terribly swift in massacre, and tin' ground they travel over is murderous beyond description. Ravines so deep that horsemen can pass unseen alone them, ambuscade our whole front, while streaks and patches of thick bnshsnporflouely offer continuous lines of convert in every direction to a foe that needs no such helps to concealment. Crawling along on all fours, they traverse the space between them and their victims with all the patient caution of wild beasts stalking prey. They reached the doomed tent. For the sake of the sea breeze the doorway is open, and the next instant the murderer is standing by the sleeping soldiei’s side. H<‘ feels a hand passing over his body and starts. A cry is rising to his lips. It is strangled in his t. roat by a groan ol pain, and before the gnl'ant fellow can even warn bis comrades, the fierce spear is driven home, through his body, the heavy two-handled sword has fallen across him. But the tent is.alarmed: there is no time to lose ! Slashing this way and that, the murderers stub ami hack with the fury of fiends, and then as the camp starts to its feet in clamour, they are off. Not n sound betrays lb ir passing. There is no t’aie of Mood to tell of retribution. There arc. gom back into (ho villainous gullies, back into the scattered bush ; and mxt we can imagine them silting In refresh thernseves outside om line of redoubts —to listen to the storm they have raised the bugles telling the old tale of murder comph ted and the murderers one, Ibo aimless volley of rifles, the din the impotent utterances of our indignant guns roaiing for un impossible vengeance, fsow, should such a tragedy as this have been possible? The authorities, when T venture to say it should not be possible, have but one reply—that absolute security from such accomplished assassins cannot be expected. We have had daily warning of the desperate courage and, craft of tlmse spearmen, ami yet we have nightly shown that we will not learn by experience. If no other means can he devise 1, the simple process of making half a regiment si and to its arms, rifles unloaded, inside the lent, to guard the other half for the six dangerous hours of night (taking three hours alternately), would make massacre impossible and retribution certain. Or is not the example of the Indian contingent worth imitation ! They refused to lie in their tents and bo stabbed and hacked about, so they have traced a ditch along their front, ami when the Hadendowas came up last night to assassinate them they found the whole line manned, ami got well peppered for their pains, leaving, at any rate, one corpse in acknowledgement of the reception they got. “ Being scuppered ” is surely a very disgraceful experience for a British Army. In Afghanistan the Ghazis soon form 1 that “ running a muck ” did not pay. In Zulnland the laager was a most complete and effective defence. But here, with any enemy compared to whom Afghans and Zulus are civilised soldiers, and in a country that is ns murderous as the Khyler ami infinitely more dangerous than the donga river plains of Zulnlancl, we have our soldiers “ scuppered ” night after night. The feeling here is very bitter on the point, and naturally so. It is no question of being “ rushed, ’’ bit of being “ sneaked,” This is quite an exceptional form of danger, and should have been met a week ago by exceptional precautions.