Seeing the other’s peril, Baxter immediately reined in his horse, sprang down and lifted the wounded man into the saddle. Captain Grey and Lieutenant Hook now went to his assistance, and got Baxter along as fast as they could; but the Matabele came leaping through the bush and closed in upon them.
Firing at close range, they wounded the lieutenant and almost did for Grey, the captain being half stunned by a bullet. As Baxter, left unprotected for the moment, ran on, another Scout, with the picturesque name of “Texas” Long, went to his assistance, bidding him hold on to the stirrup leather. In this fashion Baxter was making good progress towards safety when a bullet struck him in the side, and as he fell to the ground the savages pounced out upon him with their assegais. He was killed before Long or any other could have saved him.
If to lay down one’s life for a friend is the test of true heroism, then Trooper Frank Baxter has surely won a high place in the roll of our honoured dead.
At this same fight on the Umguza other deeds of valour were performed of which no official recognition was taken, but they are enshrined in the memory of the colonists. John Grootboom, a loyal Xosa Kafir and a very famous character, did wonders; and Lieutenant Fred Crewe saved the life of Lieutenant Hook in a gallant manner.
Hook’s horse was shot and its rider thrown to the ground, causing him to lose his rifle.
“Why don’t you pick it up?” asked Crewe, as the other came hobbling towards him.
“I can’t; I’m badly wounded,” was the answer.
“Are you wounded, old chap?” said Crewe. “Then take my horse, and I’ll try and get out of it on foot.”
And, having got the lieutenant up into the saddle, Crewe slowly won his way back through the Matabele, keeping them off with his revolver, and being hit only by a knobkerry which caught him in the back.
The third V.C. of the campaign was won by Captain R. C. Nesbitt, during the fighting in Mashonaland. A party of miners in the Mazoe Valley having been attacked by the natives, a patrol rode to their relief from Salisbury, but was unable to bring them away. On the 19th of June Captain Nesbitt was out with a patrol of thirteen men when he met a runner from the leader of the refugees, with a note which stated that they were in laager and urgently in need of help. A relief force of a hundred men and a Maxim gun was asked for. The captain read the message out to his men and proposed that they should try and rescue the party, to which the troopers readily agreed. Sending the runner on to Salisbury, the patrol at once turned their horses in the direction of the Mazoe Valley, and fought their way through the cordon of Mashonas to the laager. Then, with the three women of the party in an armoured waggon, they started on the return journey, and after some desperate fighting brought them all safely in to Salisbury, with a loss of only three men.