The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1914-12-17
ENGLISH CAPTAIN TELLS HOW Men
DIE RATHER THAN ABANDON GUNS

they found the IL guns all out of ac-
ton from the fire OF three.
n three survivors of the rank and
file are recommended for the Victoria
Cross, as previously mentioned. Cap
tain Bradbury and Lieutenants Camps
bel and Mundy. who were killed, re-
celyed special mention in dispatches,
n Lieutenant Jephson, the surviving
though severely wounded officer, re-
ceiVed the Legion Of Homer from the
trench.
The British Royal Horse Artillery
gun Is q 1S~-pounder, ~quick-firing gun.
In distinction to the field artillery the
entire attachments are mounted; In the
latter the inner set on the guns and
Timber. The Royal Field Artillery weap-
on is an ~1S-pounder, quick-firer and is
intended to accompany infantry, and
the Royal Horse Artillery guns are PEE
horse.
:
This action recalls the incident Of
the two batteries of Royal Field Ar
tillery at Colenso, in the Boer war.
Ihese batteries, part of the brigade di-
vision, as the unit was then called,
commanded by Colonel Long, a dash
ing horse gunner who had wen dis
tinction in the Soudan, were ordered
to engage the guns in the Boer
trenches on the Teyela heights. Gall
lopiEs rival into the open, the guns,
as they uplitabered on the plain, were
met by a blast OF rifle fire from the
Boers, who, all unknown, had occu-
pied the river bed.
Hero Dies at Gun.
Teams and detachments went down
but the guns continued in action till
but one man was left and ne, unable to
serve his gun alone, fired a last shot and
then stood quietly at attention behind
the u (Which in those days had no
shieids1 till he fell. When his bedy
was found later it had been pierced
by so bullet Wounds. Meantime, spare
teams were galloping up, but only two
could be hooked in. the rest all went
Gown IN the storm of bullets. Here
Lieut.. Fredric Roberts, son of the great
field marshal, won hif Victoria Cross
n lost his life; only those two guns
were saved. All his while in a shallsw
douga nearby the gallant Long, shot
through the liver, was being held back
by force from crawling back into the
deadly hail, exclaiming to one who
toid him that the guns must be aban-
doned: Damn you, sir; we never aban-
don guns"
We recall again the heroic Colonel
Benson, lying with both thighs shat
tered across the trail of a gun on the
fatal plateau of B-rokenlaagte. Around
him in heaps were what had been the
gun detachments, the rear guard of
Scottish Horse and other mounted in
fantry. Calling to him two troopers
still able to crawl he ordered them
back to the main body on the ridge be-
hind. Tell the ordnance commander
or the rest Of the battery to omen fire
on NJ ridge and on these two guns.
Tell him to keep up a steady fire till
dark and then let them bring these
guns or. Tell him to never mind us
1 wn'Tp ONT nP nofin, pJr~~l,, l,r4 ~
Beers must not get these guns"
Other Instances.
Instances could be multiplied. from
the peninsula down to today, OF Ram
Soy Of the Chestnut troop 3. I'll, A..
surrounded by Ctlasseurs r CheVal and
Pehs dancers who linbered up and
charged right through the French, win
ming from the stern wellington q rare
compliment We'll done gallant Norman
RamIey,' of Michael Dawes at ChiYiau-
Wa!Ilah who a cavalry regiment
and at the finish brought in the Seven
teenth BeYal Light battery, creeping
nome W. wounded horses to a gun. and
with guns and limbers piled with
of Wynter of the Twenty
ninth Indian Mountain battery, who
est every mule Of his section and
whose drivers fought the Pathans off
with cutiasses inc hand spikes while
the gunners cleared the guns and anne
INTO action at 20 yards, blowing the
pathans away with case nj reversed
shrapnel. While Wynter himself lay
with a shattered leg with his Mohar-
medan orderly lying on him as a shield
all nlght-nearly all, British officers.
native officers, gunners and drivers
killed, but they saved the guns.
me cavalry have their guidons, the
infantry their colors and they are
sacred, but the gunner has only his
guns. The ma OF war is dying,
the work of the inventor. and the
formula of the scientists rule the bat
lleiieId; but 1t will be a poorer world
which sees a day when the ROYAL artil-
lery find some other rule of conduct
than the gallant Longs damn you sir
we never abandon guns"