Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-01-12

wounds. The slaughter was appalling to
watch; the galMntry displayed was useless
under the pitiless iron hail that was but
slightly checked by the redoubted shellng
of the reinforced battery. With Il cheer
the Yorkshire men-by curious coincidence
they had been conveyed from Mauritius by
the very men to whose help they now came
ran up, pouring upward a tremendous fu
sillade toward the crest Of the Sanger. OF
course. they lost heavily. but their open
formation and the impossbility of distin-
gushing officers saved them from the con.
centrated fire that had deprived the naval
detachment of their leaders, and little by
little the thin line Of khaki crawled up to
the top.
The storming line was now so near
the crest that the guns could only be d.
rected upon the Beers enfilading the posi-
ton from the spurs of the kopje on the
left, and almost in calm Lieutenant S.
c. Taylor, closely followed by Lieutenant
Jones Of the marines. reached The outer
works of the Sanger and made their way
over
I'm the next half minute fifty men tum-
bed over and Immediately rushed forward
to clear the position in the rear. This was
however, stubbornly held for a quarter of
an hour, more, perhaps as a screen than
anything else to cover the retreat of the
Beers.
Above, the hilltop was almost dripping
with blood; not a boulder escaped it's splash
OF crimson, and the innumerable splinters
and chips of ironstone blocks indicated the
or wounded Beers We're carried off-fifty
of the more severely wounded We're found
in their hospital, quarter of a mile away,
but here and there dead man proved
that here the TranSvaal had sent its men
down for the first time to meet the on
coming column
The Daily Telegraph's correspondent d-
lates upon the daring of the marines.
The mariners numbered 1885,, he writes,
and every man was in the lighting line,
four yards apart. OF the total the number
nut was ntnety-tWo-eXactly 40 per cent.
Not a particle of cover was to be had save
three small ant hills. and the Beers had ac-
curate1y measured the ranges of these from
their position. one gallant fellow, describ-
ing the fire to an officer, said: Yes, sir.
the bullets came mddling thick and while
actually making the ascent he remarked to
his next man that it was like blooming
hail storm Each of the three companies
had only one officer, two of those We're soon
hit, and the comma nding officer shot dead.
Sergeants at once supplied their places, and
of these 10 per cent We're nit. Four bullets
went through the clothes and helmet of one
officer, and fifth knocked away the maya
zine of his rifle. That was 'mddling thick
Tommy said.
lone detachment of sixteen marines,
writes the Standards correspondent, who
had got around the corner of the kopie
away from the Others and We're without an
officer, were not certain about the order TO
clear the kopje. But one of the men shout
ed, Let's at the devilsr and they rushed to
the top, losing ten out of their number in
the ascent
Julian RaIph's Story.
Julian Ralph, writing for the Daily Mail
says:
LET me describe the top of one Of the
small hills in the Belmont engagement the
one in stormng which the brave Grena-
diers suffered part of their fearfully heavy
loss.
ION this kopje the Boer commander had
compelled the poorer men of his commando
to live for weeks. l took it that these We're
men of the servant and the laborer class.
fhe1r dead, whose untidy and neglected
bodies l saw as the British bullets and
bayonets had left them, confirmed this
theory, for they We're poorly clad I'M
shaver. unclean and hungry looking. They
were of that class of Boer whom James
Bryce describes as having started at a sew
enteenth century standard and deteriorated
for three hundred years. / knew when |
saw such men among the dead the wound
ell and the prisoners, how it could be that
white men could misuse the white flag and
mock the sacred purposes of the Geneva
Cross.
The food the dirt and the extraordinary
profusion of cartridges and cartridge wrap
pings We're all mixed together, but the
earth and disorder We're not SO offensive as
the grimy, beaStly condition of the dead.
If / could write steadily for a week (and
II there were no such strict censorship as
letters mel l could not exhaust the list of
peculiarities, eccentricities, anomalies and
novelties of this war waged against us