Ridiculous, of course, such a scene must seem to civilians who have been fed on the heroics of a melodramatic school, or on the still falser ‘revelations’ of writers who, having never seen a battle, mix their own pusillanimous imaginings with so-called ‘psychological’ studies and ironically brand that mixture with the ‘red badge of courage’; but it is true to the nature of soldiers who are not always thinking great things while they do them, and who have often a laugh or an oath on their lips when their thoughts take a flight too serious for words. Burn-Murdoch has told us how, in the midst of a duel that was practically for life or death between some Boers and Lumsden’s Horse in this fight at Ospruit, men laughed outright at something that seemed to them ‘tearfully funny, coming as it did like the comedian’s joke in the middle of a tragedy.’ A soldier should make the best of valets because he is never a hero to himself. Yet he has a firm and never-to-be-shaken faith in the heroism of others. Lumsden’s Horse, many of them in imminent peril at the moment, watched their Colonel’s action in going out to bring the wounded Trooper Franks from a shot-withered slope to some place of comparative safety, and they afterwards declared it to be a valorous deed well worthy of the Victoria Cross. To that conclusion Sir Patrick Playfair also came when the story was told to him, and he said so. Thereupon Colonel Lumsden was much upset lest somebody might say that he, too, had been trying to win the coveted distinction. So he hastened to write a ‘disclaimer’ in these words: What Sir Patrick really means, and heard about from some of my men, referred to the death of poor Franks, who was lying wounded on the veldt about 800 yards from the point we held on the extreme right of the fighting line. We could see him plainly through our glasses writhing evidently in great pain; and, as I asked for some volunteers to ride down and bring him in, I did not care to request them to do a thing I would not do myself, so rode down with my galloper, Trooper Percy Smith, now a captain in the Middlesex Regiment and a D.S.O., and Trooper Betts and Trooper Chapman, the latter of whom afterwards obtained a commission in the Johannesburg Police. On reaching the spot we found Franks lying in great danger and pain. Having a quiet pony, ‘Harry Stuart,’ I dismounted, and we placed the wounded man on my horse, and while he was held by two of his comrades we walked back to camp under a pretty heavy fire from some Boers who were galloping on our left rear and firing at us. It was a foolish thing on my part to have done, but, as I said, we were all new to the game together, and I did not care to ask my men to risk their lives in an action in which I would not chance my own. That is all. There was nothing in it.