"SCUPPERED IN CAMP."

Temuka Leader, Issue 1353, 16 June 1885, Page 3

"SCUPPERED IN CAMP."

"Scuppered" is a word which 1 lidd never met with till I camiMoSuaki'ii, and iis horrible significance is u new experience to British troops. To be "scuppered " moms hero being hacked to pieces in your t?ni while asleep. How the Hadendowasdo it nobody hut themselves can tell. Our sentries cannot, see these s-ivagea. Once pnat our picket.* the redoubts cannot fire on them. On the sand their feet full without a sound. The nights are of extraordinary darkness, moreover, and they are experts in all the treacheries! of warfare. Silent as shadows they are terribly swift in massacre, and the ground they travel over is murderous beyond description. Ravines so deep that horsemen uan pass unseen along them and ambuscado our whole front, whilst streiiks and patches of thick brush aupeifluously offer continuous lines of cover in every direction to a foe that needs no such helps to concealment. Crawling along on all fours, they traverse the spac-3 between them and their victims with all the patient ca.utiou of. wild beasts stalking prey. They reach 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 soldier's side. He feels a hand passing over his body and starts. A cry is rising to bis lips, It is strangled in his throat by a groan of puin, and before the gallant fellow can even warn his comrades the fieice spear is driven home through his body, the heavy two-handed sword has fallen across him. But the tent is alarmed. There is no time to lose ! Slashing this tvay and that the murderers stab and-hack with the fury of fiends, and then hb the camp starts to its feet in clamor they are cff. Not a sound betrays their passing. There is no trace of blood to tell of retribution. They are gone—back into the villainous gullies, back into the scattered brush ; and next we can imagine them sitting to refresh themselves outside our line of redoubts—to listen gleefully to the storm they have raised— Die bugle? telling the old tale of murders completed end the murderers gone, the aimless volleys of rifles, the din of voices, the impotent utterances of our indignant guns roaring for an impossible vengeance. Now, should Buch a tragedy as this have been possible ? The authorities, when I venture to say it should not be possible, have but one reply—that absolute a acurity from such accomplished ; assassins cannot be expected. We ha,ve ' had daily warning of the desperate courage and craft of these spearsmen, and yet we have nightly shown that we will not learn by experience. If no other means can be devised, ';he simple process of making half a regiment stand to its arms, rifles unloaded, inside the tent, 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 refimed to lie in their tents and be hacked an rl stabbed about, so they have traced a ditch along their front, and when the EUdendowas came up last night to assassinato them they found the whole line manned, and got well peppered for their painss, leaving at any rate one corpse in acknowledgement of the reception they got, " Buing scuppered" is surely a very disgraceful experience for a British army. In-Afghanistan the Ghazis soon found that " running amuck" did not pay. In Zululand l,he laager wis a complete and effective defence. But here, with an enemy compared to whom and Zulus am civilised soldiers, and in a country that is as murderous as theKyber and infinitely more dangerous than the Donga river plains of Zululand, we have our soldiers " scuppered" night after night, fhe feelinj; here is very hitler on the point, and naturally so. It is no question of being" sneaked." This is quite an exceptional form of danger, and should have been met a week ago by exceptional precautions. -Telegraph Correspondent.