“Take my horse, sir,” he said, “and ride off while there’s time.”
The major refused, and with still more determination when Doogan was wounded as he stood urging his master to mount; but although the enemy were close on them both men escaped capture. For that act of devotion Private Doogan was decorated in due course.
Just a month later occurred the fight on Majuba Hill. Colley’s object in occupying this position was to render the Boers’ occupation of Laing’s Nek untenable, but he was again unsuccessful, losing his own life in the attempt. The story of his night march up the hill and the death-trap into which he fell need not be retold. It is a disaster one does not care to dwell upon.
Against the gloom, however, one or two isolated acts of bravery shine out prominently. That gallant soldier Hector Macdonald, then a sergeant in the 92nd Highlanders, won a commission through his prowess there, and Lance-Corporal Farmer, of the Hospital Corps, a V.C.
When Surgeon Arthur Landon stopped behind the retreating soldiers to dress the wounds of the fallen men around him, Corporal Farmer and another man stood by his side to assist. To their shame, be it said, the Boers fired upon the little group, hitting the surgeon, the wounded man, and Farmer’s comrade.
Thinking to stop the cowards, the corporal waved a bandage in the air to show that he was engaged in an act of mercy. But it had no effect. Their rifles cracked again, and the bandage fell as Farmer’s right wrist was struck.
“I’ve got another arm!” he shouted, stooping to pick up the bandage with his left hand and raising it on high. But the Boers shot at him yet once more and with deadly effect, shattering the elbow joint of his arm. After which the brave fellow gave up trying to teach humanity to such savages.
There were other Crosses gained in that brief but inglorious campaign against the Transvaal Boers—at Elandsfontein and at Wesselstroom; but I must pass on to tell of some acts of valour performed in another South African war of rather later date. In 1896 a serious rebellion broke out among the Matabele, who had been living peaceably under the rule of the Chartered Company for three years, and but for the prompt action of the Colonials in Rhodesia the consequences might have been far more terrible than they were.
The causes of that rebellion are not hard to seek. Generally speaking, it is said to have originated in the stringent measures enforced against the cattle plague, the rinderpest, which was sweeping through the country; but there were other and deeper reasons why the Matabele rose. Since their subjection in 1893, after Lo Bengula was defeated, the natives had been compelled to perform a certain amount of labour—paid labour—annually, and had had to pay a very large fine in cattle. All this bore heavily upon them. They chafed under the disgrace of being a conquered people, they who had been a great warlike nation; and only awaited a favourable opportunity to throw off the yoke.
The opportunity came in 1896, after Dr. Jameson, starting on his famous Raid, had withdrawn the police force of Rhodesia, with most of the big guns and munitions of war. Believing the white settlers to be at their mercy now, the Matabele chiefs, who had been maturing their plans, gave the signal to rise, and immediately the civilised world was horrified by a series of terrible massacres, far exceeding any that had taken place in the 1893 rebellion. Within the short space of a week not a white person was left alive in the outlying districts of Matabeleland. Men, women, and children, whole families in some instances, were wiped out.