“No, I’m going home, Jack,” was the whispered reply. “I can feel the life running out of me. Hold me tight and stay by me, will you? It’s lonely work to die without a friend.”
Jack’s eyes filled with tears, for from the very first he had feared that his poor friend was mortally hit and upon the point of death. He propped him up still higher, and having moistened his lips again, put his arms round him and held him firmly.
There was a long and painful pause, and then the young Highlander spoke again, this time in a stronger voice:
“Jack,” he said earnestly, “I’d have given more than I possess to live to the end of this struggle; but we shall win. Mark the words of a dying man—England shall come out victorious. The cause of freedom and justice shall triumph above all others, and Victoria, God bless her! shall rule this continent.”
He was silent again for a few moments, and then continued in a voice which was scarcely as loud as a whisper:
“Bend down, old chap,” he said. “I’m off to the other land. Remember me, Jack, when I’ve gone, and when you get back to dear old England again, look the people up and tell them that Angus met the end like a soldier and a man. They’ll be sorry. Yes, Mother and Father and the boys and girls will miss me. But they’ll he proud, too, that I died like this—Put your hand in mine, Jack. Ah, now I know you’re there! Good-bye! God bless everyone! My love to you, Dad and Mother! Good—”
There was a deep sigh, and the head of the gallant young officer fell back upon Jack’s shoulder, and the tears which were streaming down the latter’s cheeks fell upon the pale face of as brave a man as Britain had ever known.
Jack laid him gently on the grass, and, rising sorrowfully to his feet, looked for the last time upon this stalwart young Highlander. He beckoned to some Highlanders who had looked on tearfully all the while, and who now approached and carried their officer away. Then he joined Mr Hunter, and all night long helped to gather the wounded.
When morning dawned again—the morning of the Sabbath—the awful havoc wrought by our shell was for the first time seen. Down the slopes of the hill, and away across the flats, Boer and Briton lay cold and motionless, separately and in groups; sometimes huddled together as if still engaged in a deadly tussle, and sometimes side by side in seeming friendship. Farther away, near the long ridge which the enemy had held, scores of mangled bodies were found, and at once handed over to the Boers, while the poor wounded wretches were tended to by our surgeons.
Then, when human skill and care had done all that was possible for the living, the troops formed up and in long lines carried their dead to the cemetery. The rifles rang out the regulation volleys, the bugles wailed the “Last Post”, and all was over, save that each and every soldier bore away with him from that scene a lasting memory of those brave comrades who but a few hours before had been full of life and energy.