. South Africa and the Transvaal War. ms fromevery one connected with the regiment, giving us great praise for our share inthe battle, and really I must say the regiment did very well, considering wehave so many youngsters in the ranks. The most trying part was lying downso long under fire without seeing any one to fire at. I was rather luckier, hav-ing to retire at first, and then chase some Boers out of the house with the bayonet,and then we had to ford the river and clear the north bank of the river. Wewere clearing them beautifully with the bayonet when a shell from our ownguns burst among
. South Africa and the Transvaal War. ms fromevery one connected with the regiment, giving us great praise for our share inthe battle, and really I must say the regiment did very well, considering wehave so many youngsters in the ranks. The most trying part was lying downso long under fire without seeing any one to fire at. I was rather luckier, hav-ing to retire at first, and then chase some Boers out of the house with the bayonet,and then we had to ford the river and clear the north bank of the river. Wewere clearing them beautifully with the bayonet when a shell from our ownguns burst among us. This seemed to demoralise every one, and they allcommenced to retire. But, seeing this was my first fight, I couldnt see myway to retire without seeing who I was retiring from, and besides there was alot of wounded lying about; so a major of the North Lancashire Regiment andmyself succeeded in rallying ten men of different corps and held an were soon tackled by the Boers, but after we killed half-a-dozen of them 106. The Battle of Modder River they appeared to get tired of it and cleared off, and we managed to get all thewounded in. I believe I have got recommended for the Distinguished ConductMedal and the Victoria Cross for my share in this, but of course it is one thingbeing recommended and quite another thing getting it. Boer treachery, of which we had many examples, had hitherto beenpractised with monotonous regularity. They had fired on the whiteflag and disregarded the sacred sign of the red cross. They had shotthe hand that tended them, they had used Dum-Dum and explosivebullets, but on this occasion the triumph of originality in treacheroustrickery was achieved. On the principle of all is fair in love andwar, the enemy utilised their ambulance for the purpose of removingtheir Hotchkiss gun from the field, and that too when the preciousweapon was not even invalided! Tales of many plucky actions which were recorded would fill avolume in itself. Private
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