THE LOVAT SCOUTS' LOSSES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10502, 25 November 1901, Page 2

THE LOVAT SCOUTS' LOSSES.

First Contingent Re-enlist They cried "coronach" in Inverness- „ shire and the Highlands generally when men of Lovafs Scouts were killed the other day in Cape Colony, but before the woTun had ceased their wailing — indeed, the day after # the news of . Kruitzinger's fatal charge had reached the North of Scotland — a large number of the original members of the Corps of Scouts applied to Sergeant-Major Macneill, at -the head-quarters at Inverness, for permission to proceed -to South * Africa to replace the- severe casualties among, the second contingent. The men deeply felt the losses sustained, and are anxious to proceed a£ once to the front. Provost Maclean at once communicated the wishes of the men to the War Office, and received the following telegram :—: — ' "His Majesty's Government accepts with great satisfaction the patriotic offer of Ist Contingent. Lovafs Scouts, to supply numbers necessary to replace men m 2nd Contingent, who fell, with their colonel, in so gallantly repulsing Boer attack." STORY OF THE BECENT FIGHT.

Tht Central "-News' . correspondent sends some details of the night surprise in which the Scouts suffered so heavily The Scouts were stationed in. the Zastron district in the extreme south-east of the Orange. Colony- Eighty men with two guns^ — a ttnpounder and a Colt — and somo waggons had., been detached from the main body' of the Scouts, and bivouacked for the night at the foot of a kopje tb await a junction' with the remainder of the force.

A hail of bullets suddenly fell among them. Colonel Murray rallied his men in the darkness, and they gatheerd round the. waggons, and the two guns. The Boers were so close that it waa impossible to use the 15-pounder, but the Colt was servedr very effectively upon the enemy. Colonel Murray and his cousin, were -shot in quick succession, the former just as he was in the act of ordering his men to fix bayonets. The Colt continued working until seven of the artillerymen had been shot down as .they served the'gun. The enemy captured the 15-pounder, but the Scouts were able to save the Colt and their ammunition waggons. After the fight was over Colonel Murray's body "was found stripped. The enemy left five of their dead on the field within the lines of the British camp. The officers were interred with the men on tho field. ' AN ARISTOCRATIC BARBER. One^ of Lord Lovat's scouts — Ser-geant-Major McCallnm — writing from the banks of the Orango Eiver, gives some details of the hfe'led by the Scouts. They wore at the time watching for Boers endeavouring ~to cross into Cape Colony. "The "discipline," writes the sergeant-major, "is beyond all praise. The officers are a grand lot, a.nd peg into work in a manner wonderful to behold. Nearly all have grown beards, and to. meet them, at times now | one would scarcely recognise some of. them as belonging to the crack Scottish regiments. I could not holp laughing on passing through the lines to see iiha Captain the Hon. G. Hardy, Grenadier Guards, having his hair cut by a no less aristocratic personage than Captain the Master of Sempill, the .eldest son of Lord Sempill, of Craigievar. Similarly a day or two ago to see tho officers^ in force levelling a piece of - gipuud for polo playing, Lord Loyat wielding a pickaxe and demolishing ant-heaps, the adjutant, Captain E. O. Murray (who was killed in the. night surprise), carrying sacks* of Ido not know- what to nil up holes, etc.; whHsbthe remainder were ocQupied in like work. - HOW THE PROCLAMATION WAS

received: ' The Master of Sempill suffered a great indignity at the hands" of the Boers last month. He,, with two men, went with .Lord Kitchener's proclamation to a Boer laager under a flag of truce. When the captain showed the Boers the proclamation they said they did not care what proclamation was issued, as they would not take any heed of it; and, to finish up, the Boers took the captain's and conductors horses, putties and.leggings from them, " and made thorn walk into camp without them. The captain says lie will be avenged yet.

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