The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-12-22

last stand. The bedies of the fifteen
that had fallen Of this little band were
grouped as death had taken them.
Some lay with heads sunken on their
rifle stocks, fighting to the end. An
other had placed his hat upon a promi-
nent stone five yards away, and had
died with his fingers pressing a charge
into his magazine. i
What remained of the lager was
the litter of shell fire. Tents were torn
and burned, wagons splintered and
overturned, food stuffs, dead horses.
and explosives lay in wrecked prOfu-
sion. There remained no doubt that
our she'll fire had played upon the po-
sition with full effect, and one could
only marvel that the Beers had stood
to their guns SO long. But, as one of
the wounded prisoners told me later
in the day; there was no room to re-
treat, the extended files of the Man.
chester Regiment, overlapping the re-
verse Of the kopje, sweeping the north
ern footpath, while the rain Of shrap-
mel destroyed every living thing on the
western slopes. And the scene at the
farmhouse nesting at the foot Of the
ridge, on the far side, bore out this
statement. 1t was here that the Beers
had brought their horses for cover,
and carcasses lay piled ON every side.
The slaughter among the horses must
have been almost as heavy as that of
the men"
Bennett Burleigh, the "Daily Tele-
graphs" war correspondent, supplies
a full account of the humiliation of the
armored train contingent at Chiveley,
when Winston Churchill was captured.
The train,. it appears, with the keep
ton of the engine, tender and two
trucks, was badly wrecked by the re-
moval of fish plates and the seventy
two men of the Dublin Fusileers and
the ninety-five men of the Durham
Light Infantry, to say nothing of five
blue jackets from the Tartar, were
thrown out. Captain Haldane of the
Gordon Highlanders, who commanded
the party, rallied his bruised and
shaken men and amid a hail of bullets
from the Beers, began to clear the line,
while others were pouring deadly vol
leys into the almost unseen Beers, hid
den behind the rocks, about LOCO yards
off. The blue Jackets, bravely COM
manded by their petty officer-who was
the incarnation of coolness-got their
seven FOUNDER into action. They sent
in two, if not three, we'll aimed shells
at the Beers, several hundred of whom
lined the hills. But just then a shot
from the enemy's three FOUNDER, or field
gun, hit the small naval seven FOUNDER
knocked gun and carriage onto the
veldt and wounded several of the sea-
men. But the men were not a whit
beaten.
The Pail Mall Gazette" describes
Winston Churchill's conduct on this oc-
casion as follows:
"A party of volunteers, consisting
principally of plate layers, etc, led by
Winston Churchill, who behaved
throughout with most heroic courage,
succeeded in placing the rails. Mr..
Churchill had previously assisted in
carrying in no less than 20 men under
terrible fire. Some idea of the accu-
racy of the enemy's fire and Of Mr..
-ChurchilPs courage may be obtained by
narrating the fact that Boer she'll
burst in front of Mr.. Churchill, killing
two men on each side of him. Our
wounded were now dotting the veldt on
each side. The continued rife fire and
the weird sound of the quick firers add
ed TO the horrors of the situation. At
last the line was clear, and the engine,
with one carriage of the ar1nored train,
was enabled to return to Frere, leav-
ing Captain Haldane and party fiercely
engaged. The Beers gave it a passing
salvo of shells, hitting the tender. and
nearly derailing the train a second
time
The Daily Graphic's" correspondent,
describing a visit to the hulk Penelope,
at Somer's Bay, where the Boer prison
ers are confined, undertaken in COM
pany with Colonel Stowe, the United
States Consul General writes:
1.-THE majority Of the prisoners are
sleek, contented and Indifferent. They
told me they thought the war would
be picnic; that they would ruin Natal
before the imperial troops arrived; that
England would be involved in foreign
complications and that they would be
able to dictate terms from Pietermar-
itzburg and Durham. They thought to
view the Cape peninsula as conquerors,
not from a prison ship. Colonel Schie1
steps with difficulty. His wound in the
thigh is nearly healed, but he still re-
quires the use of a stick. Schiel is a
typical soldier of fortune-grizzly gray
hair, cropped close. aggressive military
mustache shrewd blue eyes, a thick
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