The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-08-25

day another artist, who had been al
most foolhardy with his bravery up TO
that time. was suddenly seized with
what the English call e'funk'-or
fright. This was at Driefontein-a
terrible battle. whose fiereeness has not
had the celebrity il deserves.
The artist was standing beside his
/ morse, holding the reins and sketching.
I suddenly the Beers opened every sort
of fire upon bunch of horses just be
mind him. Shells screamed and burst
/ above and behind him. bullets sang
/ their high-keyed, insistent notes beside
MS ears. and pom-pom shells screamed
and burst closer than anyone would
care 10 have them-all without a mo-
! ments warning, when he had fancied
himself quite apart from the battle
that had been raging in another part
/ OF the field.
There came TO him such a rush of
| impulses that he was staggered. First
/ ne was frightened, and next he had
10 put away his pencil. close and strap
/ mis- notebook. calm his horse, get it's
| pride over it's head. mount IL, and be
/ on For fifteen seconds he could do
| nothing; but the spasm of alarm and
confusion passed, and presently he
| was dashing away. with lead and steel
cropping and screeching all around
him.
thus surprised you could leap up and
run with a peal of laughter precisely
as ycu would do if someone at home
suddenly turned a hose or flower
spray upon you? l have seen il done
and 1 have done it-been surprised by
a uownpour of bullets from behind
When some Beers were unexpectedly
! making a charge. and have Ieaped up
and run for all / was worth, laughing
| aloud at the righteousness of my own
undignified haste. l may say that
without appearing to boast, for 1 am
no more fond of danger than any other
| ordinary man.
So various and peculiar are mems
emotions on the field of battle that It
would not seem possible that men like
lola, Hugo, Dumas and Stephen Crane
in the book he wrote before he had
seen real war-cOuId have hit upon
any phase of them that would be I'M
true. Yet what these writers dwelt
most upon is the one thing ] never saw
! or heard of in actual war-the one
| thing that all with whom have talked
| agreed in saying was far, far from
realism and the truth. That thing IS
| the consciousness of danger and the
mental preparation for death
The men whom l have known in war
go into battle believing, as a rule, that
they viii come out of ii all right. They
advance or lie down and direct an at
tack, saying TO themselves or their
neighbors: There's Billy down. He's
hit, l think Our fellows on the right
are falling like leaves. BY JoYe. this
is hot fight ] would not mind shar-
ing that heap of rocks with Charlie
Calvert II we get a chance we Will
run over there where he is Some
times men get excited. and throw
| away all concern, whether they are hit
or not Then, again, you can always
get volunteers to make a dash into
what seems to you certain death; but
it does not seem so to them, for they
believe I'm what they call their lucky
stars" and the more often they risk
death and escape il the more they
| believe themselves what George Wash
ington was said to be--the bearer of a
charmed life
In the first war l reported / said to
| myself: Courage is not at all an ex-
traordiRary thing. Nine fellows in
every ten have got it. But / think it
| must all o0ze out of a man after he is
hit. The men who have been. often
| wounded, like Lord Roberts, and who
stick to the profession, must be made
of an uncommon clay" 1 know better
than that now.