'Were you in that night attack at Ladysmith?' asked one turning to another. 'Yes, I was there.' 'Did you see Lieutenant Fergusson when he fell?' 'Yes, I was close to him. I went up to him and said, "Are you much hurt, sir? Can I take you in?" "No thank you, my lad; I'm done for," replied the dying officer. "Take some fellow you can save.'" And so he, too, died like a hero.
The officer inside the besieged town and the private soldier outside attempting to save him—are one in this, that they know how to die; and England calls each 'hero'!
And so through blood and fire, over heaps of slain, General Sir Redvers Duller passed into Ladysmith—passed in just in time; passed in to see men with wan cheeks and sunken eyes—an army of skeletons; but passed in to find the old flag still flying.
Chapter XV
LADYSMITH
The defence of Ladysmith by Sir George White and his heroic band of soldiers will rank as one of the finest feats in British history. It is not for us to tell the story of the siege. Historians of the war will do that. We need only remind our readers that from October 30, 1899, when the bombardment began, to February 28, 1900, when General Buller's advance guard marched into the town, our troops were closely besieged—besieged so closely that the Boers thought there was no possible chance of relief. 'Ladysmith will never be relieved,' said a Boer to one of our chaplains. 'No troops in the world will ever be able to get through Colenso to Ladysmith. It is absolutely impregnable.' But they did, and one hardly knows which to admire most the dogged persistence of General Buller and his men or the heroic defence, the patient, confident waiting of the beleaguered troops.