Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1899-12-26

L
Their Loved Ones-A Campaigner's
MedaIs-The Boer Army.
Uitiander refugees arriving here
bring news of the battlefield OF Glen
coe and of the situation In Johannes
burg, Pretoria and the Transvaal gen
orally, writes the St. Louis Globe-Dem-
ocrat's correspondent from Durham.
South Africa, under date of Oct. "a.
One of our countrymen, Heinrich Auer,
who had been forced to leave Johan-
nesburG because. as husband of an
English woman. he was suspected Of
British sympathies. says:
Il judge there were about 1000 dead
and wounded on the battlefield of Glen
coe when we passed it on Oct 81, in
the afternoon. L shall never forget the
sight, and l haven't slept a second
since then. Picture to yourself heaps
OF bodies, some stretched out beyond
their own length, il seemed, as if
they had grown longer with the in
tinity of torture; others curled up as
il in dying they had been searching
for friendly hand and in their ankle
~ had perhaps caught hold of their
own limbs.
There were rows of Beers who died
kneelinG in the trenches in a natural
position. Several bodies / found
standing boldly upright. leaning
against trees or other impediments
that had prevented them from falling.
They were all shot in the head. and
their faces were black from powder,
dust or the beginning of putrefaction.
MANY OF the horse carcasses were
already shapeless masses. gases having
swelled them. Ard all over this living
grave rose the gurgling wailing Of
wounded and expiring men. who groan-
ed and sighed for help or for death to
come while the red saliva ran from
the mouth and while their hands and
nails clutched at the earth and grass.
'Ah, that one might be a ministering
angel and dispatch some of these I'M
happy ones by a beneficial dose of
poison, l caught myself running away,
bowling and blubbering from the side
of Boer who was vainly trying to
stuff back his protruding entrails.
There Il brave rifleman had bitten off
his tongue while seized by spasms. 1
saw three or four men die within arms
length of me. One suddenly rose,
jumped high in the air and fell back
dead.
"Outside the hospital tents 1 found
Beers lying on cots, fidgeting round
with their arms and murmuring:
What's the use. Let's retreat and
back at them Here was a whole
row of sharpshooters disposed in eX-
cellent order with their officer in the
center, evidently struck by a volley as
they We're obeying a command TO shoot
themselves. An overturned battery
there, the piece of ordnance buried in
the sand, parts of human and horses
bodies, mingled indissolvably, swim
ming in a pool of blood. Many of the
dead had their faces turned in the di-
rection of the sinking sun. Their spir-
its were sinking at the same time, l
reckon.
over the flying hospitals hung the
awful smell of chloroform. Saws were
buzZing there over bones, knives sharp
ened and drafts cOncocted in the open
air. The seutinels and outpostS shot
vultureS by the dozen without driving
all away. Thank God, the human hy-
enas of the battlefield were missing,
though there are not enough people in
this neighborhOod TO yield these out
casts that in civilized Europe abound.
zone of the English sanitary officers
showed me n basketful of letters which
his men had gathered on the battle
field. Wounded to the death, despair
ing of timely rescue, many English Of
ficers and men had died scribbling a
word of farewell TO their loved ones
or else pressing to their lips some lines
received from mother or father. wife.
sister, bride or intended. l myself
ran across some of these flying mes
sages. chased by the playful breeze.
One or two seemed stained with tears
all had blood spots on them. Several
were beyond decipherinC. 4 hospital
nurse told me that he found many dead
Englishmen stretched on their back,
knapsack under their head and a pho
toGraph in heir uninjured hand. May
be they had been dying for hours, hav-
ing just strength enough to make
themselves comfortable and take the
picture from their pocket. An old
campaigner of the Irish fusileers was
discovered with his hand raised TO his
mouth. the hand clutching the medals
which the dying man had torn from
his breast. a young lieutenant of the
rifles near by had his dying look rivet-
ed upon a rose colored billet doux with
gilt margin. 1t began. My darling
- Five weeks ago this darling
promenaded at the side OF the beautiful
writer in BelCravia.
The number of dead and wounded
Beers was at least four times that OF
the English. but these Beers had vast
ed no sentiment in making their exit
out of the world. No letters were
found with the dying and wounded;
no photographs. The Boer strikes no
attitudes; his heroism is blunt, but I'M
picturesque
Durham is overrun with people, who
have been streaming into town for the
last two weeks. West street is as pop
ulous nowadays as Broadway during