A Yarn Against the Colonial Trooper.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue II, 13 July 1901, Page 59

A Yarn Against the Colonial Trooper.

Mr. Bennet Burleigh writes to the “Daily Telegraph”: Curious gentlemen are some of our newer colonial recruits. One of them caused genuine alarm within a thousand miles of De Aar camps recently. Fresh from pursuits other than military, he retired to his tent at tattoo, but not to sleep. The kindly people who furnish our Tommies with lesser comforts, including literature and candles, had given him light reading and an “eight to the pound.” Lying down, he covertly lit his candle, shaded it, and placed it near his head, in order to read a yellow-covered shocker. He, however, dozed off at the tamer love scenes, leaving the candle burning underneath his web bandolier. Heat works wonders in a little space. The web became ignited, the cartridges unduly hot, and rip-p-p bang-g-g went one after another in quick succession, the bullets flying through the tent cover. So did the novice, for, starting irt horror from his slumbers, fearing the Boers were volleying into his tent, he shot off as hard as fear and legs eould carry him to a place of safety. The racket disturbed the camp commandant and others, who, with arms in , their hands, rushed to the scene to discover the cause. Eight shots had been discharged when they found the still-smouldering bandolier. “The breaker of rules,” adds the correspondent, “is doing extra packdrill, and is sleeping in a tattered tent, through w.hich the rain streams to cool his fevered fancies.”