A BRAVE CANADIAN.
Bloemfontein, March 28th.
Dear Sir,—In answer to a paragraph appearing in your paper of a past date under the heading of "Acts of Bravery performed during the War," allow me to quote one which I witnessed at Paardeberg on the morning of Cronje's surrender on February 27th. Every one knows of the gallant display made by the Royal Canadians on that never-to-be-forgotten morning, and how, as daylight broke, they had again occupied their trenches, leaving sixty killed and wounded on the field. As the sun came up behind the kopjes, revealing once more to Cronje and his men the exact position of our trenches, they opened a heavy fire upon them, and woe to the man who was indiscreet enough to show his head and shoulders over the earthworks! Between the trenches and the Boer position lay Canadian dead and dying. About 5.30 a wounded man about five hundred yards away was seen to be trying to make for our trenches under a heavy fire, but was at last observed to fall. Now and then, between the volleys, he was seen to wave his hands as if for assistance. Suddenly from the left of us a form was seen to climb the earthworks in front of our trenches, jumping down to make straight for the place where the wounded man lay, about ninety yards from the Boer trenches. Utterly regardless of the scathing fire which hissed about him, he ran on, and at last reached the wounded man and tried to lift him, but it was too late, for the poor fellow had breathed his last. Seeing it was of no avail, his would-be rescuer walked back over the ground he had covered, and although bullets whistled around him and tore up the ground in every direction, he coolly regained his trenches with a pipe stuck between his teeth. I have since ascertained his name was Private Thompson, of the Royal Canadians, and although I do not know whether his case is one recommended for distinction or not, still I have never during the campaign seen a case of such coolness and pluck as that displayed by Private Thompson. Considering the galling fire that swept the distance of four or five hundred yards which he covered in his endeavour to reach the wounded man, also his close proximity to the Boer trenches, it seems marvellous that he ever lived to get within four hundred yards of him, not to mention getting back without a scratch. His case is one of the most deserving of recognition, coming, as it does, from amongst the ranks of the gallant Canadian Volunteers, by whose side we have fought and marched since we left Graspan, and than whom a jollier or pluckier lot of boys never lived.
One of the Gordons Who Was There.
THE EMPIRE'S DEFENDERS.
BY B. CHARLES TUCKER.
See, they come marching over the plain,
Cheerfully bearing their wounds and pain,
Soldiers and sailors alike to the work,
Never a man of them doing a shirk.
These are the men that you owe a debt;
England, remember it; never forget.
Scorched and parched 'neath the broiling sun,
Not a word of complaint, work must be done.
Wounded and shattered, bespattered with blood,
Drinking of water akin to mud.
These are the men you owe a debt;
England, remember it; never forget.
Ponder it well in your leisured ease,
These, the soldiers of lands and seas,
Building the Empire hour by hour,
These, the foundation of all thy power.
These are the men whom you owe a debt;
Empire, remember; you dare not forget.