The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-04-28
BURIAL OF A SOLDIER
PATHETIC INCIDENT OF THE WAR IN
SOUTH AFRICA.
BOer Lad Who Praised the yaIor of
australians and Condemned the
War I'm Strong Terms.

Correspondence of the Associated Press.
LONDON. April 1S.-Amid the columns
that during the last few DAYS have come
by mail from war correspondents describ-
ing the victorious entry into Bloemfontein
the splendid strategy of Roberts is to be
found in the Times, buried away in dull
looking columns. a surprisingly human in
cident. 1t is only a short account of the
burial of one soldier. name not given,''
but in strength of pathos, in ldelicacy of
description, nothing finer has been done by
the great army of writers now in South At
RIGA. Dated Cape Town, March II, it is as
follows:
"One small item was left out of the
ground plan of No. 3 general hospital. Far
down on the right, where the ground slopes
to the wooded hollow. there stands a little
bell tent all by itself in a group of stunted
pines. 1t is only a dot as the eye leaves
the big marques, but greater than all of
them by n 1t holds. Through the drawn
curtain no be0 or furniture Is to be seen,
nor anything save two narrow wooden
boxes, lying side by side. One of them is
just going to burial-a Roman Catholic
and, their cemetery being two miles off.
the priest meets him there, not here. There
should have been a gun carriage to take
him, but some one has blundered and the
transport has only sent an ordinary hooded
wagon, from which a firing party Of six
militiamen in khaki tumble out and form
into line. Four orderlies lift the little box
only a feather weight-covered by the
union jack. on their shoulders, and march
up the slope. We stand uncovered, the
two hospital officers at the salute; the mil
itiamen try hard to get the reverse arms
together, but one rustic boy, whose eyes
are blinking, has to twist his rifle four
times round before he can stop il butt up
permost. The coffin slides under the hood,
the six soldiers form up, change step and
march before and behind the wagon, which
a pair of thin, wornout horses strain
through the sand, and so the little cortege
moves off, insignificant, unnoticed, with its
unsung hero, who. to some one. some
where, was perhaps the one man in all the
world. On the dark body of the wagon
one word is painted in staring white block
letters, V~ictoria-"The Great White Queen
for whom they all fight, and many die, and
win, like this"
From the other side, through the CORE
spondent of the Daily News, who was cap
of a Boer lad that tells how Boer as well
as British hearts are breaking, how
burghers lie buried i'm the veldt without
even benefit of the little wooden box"
The captured correspondent was talking
with a group of Beers in their own camp.
What do you fellows think of Australians
as fighters?" he inquired. He proceeds:
II asked the question carelessly. but the
answer that / got rough me to my bear
ings quickly, for when L learnt that more
than one gallant Australian known to me
had fallen never to rise again since / had
been taken prisoner. The man who spoke
was a mere lad, a pale-faced, ~slenderly-
built son of the veldt. He had tangled
curly hair and big, pathetic blue eyes, soft
as a girls, and limbs that lacked the
rugged strength of the old Boer soldiers.
But there was that nameless something
that indefinable expression in his face
which warranted him a brave man. He
carried one arm In a sling and the band
age round his neck hid a bullet wound.
'The Australians can fight he said. simply.
They wounded me, and-they killed my
father Perhaps 1t was the wind signing
through the trees that made the Boer lads
voice grow strangely husky; possibly the
same cause filed the blue eyes with unshed
tears.
1T was the fortune of war
Yes he answered. 1t was in fair fight.
another like it. On the lighting he
didn't hate your Australians. I didn't want
to kill any of them. My father had no ILL
will towards them, nor they to him, yet he
is out there, between two great kopjes
where the wind blows cold and dreary at
night time The lad shuddered. 1T makes
a man doubt the love of the Christ, and
now who will go back and tell mother and
little Yacoba that he is dead; that he will
come to them no more. Oh. d--n the war;
the lad called again In his pain L don't
know-only God knows-which side Is right
or wrong, but I do know that the curse of
the Christ will rest on the heads of those
who have made this war for ambitions
sake or the greed of gold, and the good God
will not let the widow and the orphan child
go unavenged; blood will yet speak for
blood, and it must rest either on the heads
of Kruger and Steyn or Chamberlain and
Rhodes
80 yxv I.I ar.h.,-I4I . lt 80 III DrfftCh
troops-the Worcesters. I think they called
them. They could neither advance nor re-
tire. We had penned them In like sheep,
and our field cornet. Van Layden. was be-
seeching them to throw down their rifles to
save being slaughtered, for they had no
chance. Just then we saw about one hun
dred Australians come bounding over the
rocks in the gully behind us; there were
two great big men I'm front cheering them
on. We. turned and gave them a voiley,
but Ii did not stop them. They rushed over
everything, firing as they came. not wildly.
but as men who knew the use OF a rifle,
with the quick. sharp, upward jerk TO the
shoulder, the rapid sight. and then the
shot. They knocked over a lot or our men,
but we had a splendid position. They had
TO expose themselves to get to US. and We
shot them as they came at US. They were
rushing to the rescue of the English. IL
was splendid. but 1t was madness. On they
came and we lay behind the powders. and
our rifles snapped and snapped again at
pistol range, but we did not stop those
wild men until they charged right into a
little basin which was fringed around all
it's edges by rocks covered with bushes.
Our men lay there as thick as locusts. and
the Australians were fairly trapped. They
were far worse off than the Worcesters up
high in that ravine.
"'Our field cornet gave the order to cease
firing, and called on them to throw down
their rifles. or die. Then one of the big
oficers-a great. rough looking man. with
a voice like a bull. roared out. Forward,
Australia no surrender Those were the
last words he ever spoke. for a man on
my right put a bullet clean between his
eyes. and he fell forward dead. We found
later that he was Major Eddy. OF the Vic
toria Rifles. He was as brave as a lion,
but a Mauser bullet stops the bravest. His
men dashed at the rocks like wolves. IL
was awful 10 see them: they smashed at
our heads with dubbed rifles or thrust
their rifles up against us through the rocks
and fired. One after another their leaders
FELL