Little Falls herald., 1900-08-31
TWO DAYS IN THE,
B0ER TRENCHES.
The Experience Of an English Soldier
Who Fell Under the AW ul fire
of the Beers.
BY Private Windsor, 1st Yorkshire
Mounted Infantry.

Yes, it's all very well now, when I've
got through the job and spent nearly
three months in an hospital, but it WAS
Jolly unpleasant while it lasted, I can
tell you.
It happened this way. We were pot
ting away in the middle of the Paar-
deberg fight, right out in an extended or
der every man more or less for him
self, when a pom-pom she'll came
plump. and burst right in front of me.
The splinters got up all over the place,
and I collapsed.
By-and-by I woke up and found had
got pretty we'll damaged. A wound
in my foot, my ankle pierced, both legs
with holes in them, and a general sort
of feeling that a thunderstorm had sat
down on me. When were in action
we've always got bandage With us, SO
tore off a couple of strips and bound
up my ankle and one of my legs. !
couldn't reach the other one, because
it was bent under me, and moving was
out of the question.
By-and-by the battle seemed to re-
move itself over the kopjes, aud I and
alf-dozen other wounded chaps were
left alone on the Veldt. The Beers
came along and lifted us into their
trenches not many hundred yards off.
We were jolly glad to get under cover,
can tell you, although we We're in the
enemy's hands. While we We're lying
out there on the veldt, we could see the
vuNures, or aasvoge's, as they call them
out there, wheeling about overhead, and
that gave US a bit of start.
NJ Inv pot nrQttV 1fOrf9 a hiG
in the Boer trenches, although it was
rough and terribly, beastly dirty. 1t
made us sick just to open our eyes and
look round. The Beers weren't half
bad to us. I got coffee and dark Boer
bread, and sort of bully beef out Of
tin, and now and then a sip of whis-
ky, or it may have been Boer brandy.
Some of their fellows came to talk to
us, and nearly all of them spoke Eng
lish There were not many foreigners,
at least, so far as 1 saw; but now and
again I heard a bit of foreign lingo,
that may have been Dutch Or French,
don't know which.
But when our guns began to lombard
Cronje in his laager just behind the
trenches in which we lay, it was just
too awful for words. The shell flew
over our ueaGS ny lie 1lullOIeu, ana De-
ing sick and weak, and my wounds ach-
ing awfully, I just thought that the end
of all things had come-and when it
didn't come, I wished it would.
The noise and the scare was some
thing terrible. The Beers ran about
all over the shop like SO many dement,
ed monkeys. Cronje tried to get up
his re-inforcements from out Natal
way, but French was too quick on his
track, and heInmed him in in no time.
The worst part of the bombardment
was when our guns were trained on to
Cronje's ammunition wagons in his
laager. They got the range at last,
and pumped shell right/a-top. The
ammunition blew up with great roar
and killed a lot Of the enemy.
All this time I was lying on my back
in the trench munching a bit Of stale
bread and groaning in pain. However
it came to an end at last, and I and the
ilalf-dozen other wounded Iritishers.
no:-e OF them fellows in ny' regiment,
were rescued by the Highland Brigade.