The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-02-04

SHOOT him, ReitZ; shoot him.. But l mad
not the heart to shoot a man at two PAGES;
so said: Put up your hands or I'll shoot
which he accordingly did. / then took his
gun and shall send you the bayonet.
AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
THE English were approaching and we
could hear what they said. They were
in high spirits and they were quite una
ware of our being in front of them. We
waited till we could see them They
marched in close order about 300 in num-
Der. They were then about ten yards from
US. We then fired among them. They
stopped and all called out: Rifle brigade
They must have supposed that we belonged
to their people. Then one of them said:
Let us charge One officer. Captain Pa
ley q am writing this letter with his silver
pencil case) advanced, though he had two
bullet wounds already. Joubert gave him
another shot and he fell on top of us. Four
Englishmen got hold of Jan Luutig and
struck him on the head with their rifles
and stabbed him in the stomach with
bayOnet. He seized two of them by the
throat and shouted: Help boys His two
nearest comrades shot two of the nearest
soldiers and the other two bolted. But then
the English came up in such numbers that
we all lay down as quiet as mice along the
bank They came in single file, about eight
hundred. along the footpath, only about six
yards from where we lay. Had there been
more of us we would have continued firing,
but the English would simply have tram
pied us down.
I'VE could, of course, see them well and
overhear all they said. One of them said:
Who knows the way?' Another replied:
Keep TO the right and as L was sitting
few yards to the right l felt somewhat un-
easy, but they just then fortunately found
the footpath again and did not see me.
Whilst they were crossing the ditch one OF
the English wounded cried OUT Wounded
man, wounded man, 10 the right; l can't
walk But one of them replied: oh, you
only a putchman.' and another cried:
Go to HEIR When the English had all
passed the day was just breaking. We aft
erwards found twenty-five of them killed
and wounded Captain Paley was still liv-
ing. and we did for him what could,
but we had no water and he died shortly
after. The other wounded men constantly
cried out for water, and We then sent one
of the prisoners-there were five or six of
them-with a white flag to Ladysmith to
fetch doctors.
lone Englishman had been struck by
seven bullets, one by four and one by three
There was, l believe, not one who had less
than two bullet wounds, and considering
that we were only seven in number and
only continued firing for about five min
utes, you can see that it must have been
warm work. Beside that, the English car
ried off a couple of their wounded out of
the ditch. All their guns had bayonets
fixed to them. l took four guns, but
gave two to the doctor to serve as splints
for the broken legs of two of the wounded
Among the twenty-five were Captain Paley
one major and one corporal.
Further on the English killed three of
our men with bayonets and wounded two
Higher up the hill there lay ten dead of the
English, and where We had been challenged
by them also lay one. Isaac Malberbe has
gone to Pretoria with the prisoners. and
if you meet him he can tell you all about it,
La hi
bring us a couple of water bottles, for We
have already suffered once or twice from
having none. Tell Att have received Will
lie Brll's letters and also tell him he must
no picnic | shall now conclude with love
70 AL iou' '''e'' "DESEYs REIrz"
A SOLDIERS HUMOR.
A letter bearing the same stamp of sim
pie truth as that of young Reitz has been
received from an officer who took part IN
the battle of Colenso. He writes:
'.At the start a shell from our own artil-
lery, with fuse badly timed, burst In the
middle Of my company. wounding about
five men. / was knocked down by the
explosion and portion of the shell struck
the ground at the side of my boot. We
went on and got behind mound. with
bullets flying within a few inches and
shells bursting over us. A bullet from
and I kept il memento. We lay as
fat as possible. waiting to be killed, as no
one thought we would escape. We were
under fire from $50 a. m. until 2:30 p. m.
Soon the Red Cross people appeared and
we were relieved from awkward posi-
ton. While lying on the ground 1 felt a
bullet skim along my back, and found
that it had made hole in my jacket. Our
men were wonderfully plucky. One man
near me got bullet through him and said:
'Ah, and if the bastes haven't hit me;
that's wan to them Immediately the
words were out his mouth he got another,
and cooler than ever said: BE jabers! If
they haven't struck me the second toimc.'
Another bullet struck him just after, and
he said: We'll, that's number three! / do
think the blackguards moight let Teller
alone after they've hit him vance
"Others were laughing and joking con-
tinually. / actually slept as / lay on the
ground and was awakened by bullets going
ping upon the ground at the side of my
head. One Boer was very kind. He gal
loped more than once to the river with half
a dozen water bottles for our men and
seemed very distressed. He said they were
all tired of the war and asked what we
were fighting about. He thought the Eng
lish were jolly good fellows. Other Beers
looted the dead and wounded and one off,
Ger was found with a finger cut off to get
a gold ring.