THE STORMING OF THE DARGAI HEIGHTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6072, 8 January 1898, Page 6

THE STORMING OF THE DARGAI HEIGHTS.

♦ INCIDENTS OF HEROISM . Are we all proud of ourselves this week ? asks an English paper. Are all Englishmen, and more particularly all Scotsmen, filled with more than usual elation of mind ? They ought to be, when they read the telegrams from India. Englishmen will hesitate before they say that anything could be finer than the Charge of the Light Brigade of Balaclava. But the charge of the Gordon Highlanders on the heights of Dargai is about as thrilling a piece of military heroism. as any that we have baird or "read about for years. Terrible was the fire through which these brave Highlanders had to pass — terrible their losses. But they went and conquered. The little speech of their fearless colonel is a model of what a British officer would be wished to say: — "Men of the Gordon Highlanders, the General says that position must be taken at all coats. The Gordon Highlanders will take it." Colonel Mathias should never make another speeoh. Ho will go down to history with this. Captain Robinson, who has, unfortunately, succumbed to his wounds, also set his Goorkha regiment an example which they will ever remember. It was he who led the first company of Goorkhas across the exposed ground, and then, finding the force insufficient, returned alone over that plain of death, brought up another company, and fell as he was leading them to support their fellows. Such heroism is something that Captain Robinson's own people and his country will be proud to think of, whatever the issue. Nor must the gallant Goorkhas be behind even the Gordons in our honour. One of the most touching and thrilling details in the report is the description of the way in which the stalwart Highlanders, when they came back to camp and were cheered by the whole army, silently fell out, and helped in carrying down the Goorkhas who were killed in the action. It was the last act of affection that brothers in arms could do. Words of plain prose could only spoil it. The Goorkhas have never failed us. That is all. Lance-Corporal Piper Patrick Milne, of the Gordon Highlanders, one of the special heroes of a memorable day, was shot, not in the ankle, as at firet reported, but through both legs, and he was brought helpless and bleeding to the. ground, exposed to the deadly fire of the enemy as he lay in the bullet swept zone. Milne, if not quite the first to leap into the zone, was among the first party of Highlanders. As he ran he i piped lustily Cock o' the- North. When he was bowled over he managed to get himself into a sitting position, and with gradually diminishing vigour continued to play the same tune. But Milne was merely one of five Gordon Highland pipers who did more than their bare duty at Chagra Kotal. The other four marched sturdily across the fire zone playing " Cock o' the North," like Milne, and only one of them got across unhurt/ Three of them were wounded, one of them severely, full in the chest. Piper Milne is much belauded in the press of Aberdeenshire. The Aberdeen Journal has published his portrait and interviewed his father, and found out the history of his accomplishments on the violin and the. bagpipes. Had som'-'one said to him en his native heath, "Can you play upon this pipe?" he would have had to answer, like Guildenstern in Hamlet, that he knew no touch of it. His accomplishment was violin playing till he got to Ireland and was taught the bagpipes in the Curragh camp. The prospect of going, to India put an end to the lad's weariness of 'fife army, and his father, a gardener at Waterside,' near Newburgh, no longer received letters .from his son begging to be bought out of his regiment. He has reason to love his bagpipes. They saved his life, perhaps, in the Chitral campaign, for a bullet then pierced them.