Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-09-27
Churchill the Fighter

had read It with pleasure and made the
acquaintance of the author.
SO Churchill had plenty of strings to
pull, and he pulled them hard until he
got his way. Those were easy days.
He, lieutenant of Lancers now, could
arrange with the son of the. proprietor
OF the chief Tory newspaper to do Sc
ries of letters from the front at SIS a
column. His mother waved him of to
the war.
Thus he got into his first cavalry
charge, the famous charge at Omdur-
man, He cut through the dervish mob
all right. Turning, he saw what had
happened to the less fortunate cavalry
men. Men came staggering with arms
ana races cut to pieces, fish-hook
spears stuck through them, some still
mounted on horses that spouted blood.
How had he got through? He had ex-
changed his saber for a Mauser pistol,
IN the use OF which he had carefully
trained himself. He had shot down
the .swordsrnen who cut at him.
AFTER this campaign he left the army,
began to write the history of that war,
and started to prepare himself for
Parliament, But the war with the Boer
republics broke out, and he hurried off
to report for the Morning post at
$i,250 month and all expenses. He
was "a.
He had not been out long before he
was taken prisoner. He was with an
arrnored train which was attacked by
the Beers and derailed. Churchill tooS
charge of the business of getting IL
back on the rails under fire. When the
locomotive began to move again
Churchill was in the cab directing the
engine driver, wounded men. ian1fninp
them in and shells bursting all round
He got out Of the cab and went back
to tell the covering party to hurry.
The Beers had got between them. Two
appeared suddenly and fred at
Churchill. He ran toward rocky
forge. A third rifle-armed figure APP
peared. Churchill put up his hands.
Recognized by Captcr.
Three years later at a luncheon party
in London given for the Beer generals
who had come over to ask for a loan
after the. war Churchill sat next to
Rotha. Churchill told him the story
OF his capture. Don't you recognize
rne?" said Gen. Botha. az was that
man, It was I who took you prisoner"
Later when Churchill was minister
during the World war he often had
great and distinguished personapes
calling on him, but there was only
one of them all whom he accompanied
downstairs and put into his car with
his own hands-and Botha was that
man.
Luck and coincidence have played so
continuous a part in Churchill's life
that one might devote the whole of this
article to erumerating instances and
then not complete them.
Hunted by brother and cousin
when a boy at play and hemrned In on
a bridge he framed the daring project
to escape by jumping into a fir tree
The branches failed to hold him and
ne fell 80 feet into a ditch. He might
have broken his back or his neck, but
by luck he landed on a soft patch in
a ditch, ruptured q kidney, was laid
up for a year, but recovered.
In the MaInur1d Valley he stays
moment in a hot spot after retreat has
been ordered TO help an excited Sikh
gather up his cartridge clips. The rest
of the party, risen, get caught In q
blast of fire; two are, killed, three
wounded, and the officer next to
Churchill goes spinning, his face a
mass of blood, his right eye cut out.
Escaping from his Pretoria prison
after his capture by Botha, he has the
most extraordinary luck, jumps train,
rides till daybreak, hides all day, walks
all night, falling into swampS and
crawling past guarded bridges and VII
lagos, and then boldly risks night
call at a house. 1t is the only house
within 20 miles where he would not
be given up. A British colliery man
ager who has become naturalized lives
there. This man hides the refugee in
the workings and smuggles him onto
train which carried him over the
frontier into Portuguese territory.
Has Marrow Escape.
In France he is summoned back from
his front-line dugout by a general who
wants to have lock at him. But the
great man after all cannot At the meet
ing in. Cursing, Churchill plows back
three miles through the mud, to find
that in his absence his duPnltt has been