or a chaplain—once saved a trooper whose horse had been killed. His method was rather original. The man was on foot and the enemy—Zulus this time—was coming down at a run, and the trooper said, very decently, that he did not see his way to perilling his officer’s life by double-weighting the only available horse. To this his officer replied: “If you don’t get up behind me, I’ll get off and give you such a licking as you’ve never had in your life.” The man was more afraid of fists than of assagais, and the good horse pulled them both out of the scrape. Now by our Regulations an officer who insults or “threatens with violence” a subordinate in the Service is liable to lose his commission and to be declared “incapable of serving the King in any capacity,” but for some reason or other the trooper never reported his superior. The humour and the honour of fighting are by no means all on one side. A good many years ago there was a war in New Zealand 13against the Maoris, who, though they tortured prisoners and occasionally ate a man, liked fighting for its own sake. One of their chiefs cut off a detachment of our men in a stockade where he might have starved them out, and eaten them at leisure later. But word reached him that they were short of provisions, and so he sent in a canoeful of pig and potatoes with the message that it was no fun to play that game with weak men, and he would be happy to meet them after rest and a full meal. There are many cases in which men, very young as a rule, have forced their way through a stockade of thorns that hook or bamboos that cut and held on in the face of heavy fire or just so long as served to bring up their comrades. Those who have done this say that getting in is exciting enough, but the bad time, when the minutes drag like hours, lies between the first scuffle with the angry faces in the smoke, and the “Hi, get out o’ this!” that shows that the others of our side are tumbling up behind. They say it is as bad as foot-ball when you get off the ball just as slowly as you dare, so that your own side may have time to come up. 13 Most men, after they have been shot over 14a little, only want a lead to do good work; so the result of a young man’s daring is often out of all proportion to his actual performances. 14 Here is a case which never won notice because very few people talked about it—a case of the courage of Ulysses, one might say.
Prev.
Back
Top