Yes, that is all! But let England, mother of nations, thank God for the sons who, doing such a deed, can say and think ‘there was nothing in it’! Cold reason may bid us approve General Charles Tucker’s words of wise caution, but all the time our hearts will be beating time to a noble refrain, the notes of which have thrilled the nerves of British soldiers in all ages, urging them to risk their own lives rather than forsake a stricken comrade, and to die like gentlemen before they would let the stain of dishonour rest on them or their regiment. People who talk glibly of the necessity for encouraging initiative among junior officers may hold that Lieutenant Crane should have conformed to the general retirement, instead of holding his isolated post with untimely resolution, waiting for the orders that could not reach him, when the Boers began to close in on his front and flanks. Apparently no blame attaches to anybody for neglecting to recall Lieutenant Crane and his party at a time when they might have extricated themselves without serious loss. Colonel Ross says that the orderly whom he sent with the message was either killed or wounded, and so the recall never reached Lieutenant Crane. That it was sent both Colonel Ross and his Staff officer, Captain Williams (who has since been killed), were quite positive. In justice to Lieutenant Crane, it must be remembered that a company officer can know very little of what is going on at other points of a fighting line beyond the immediate limits assigned to him, and the privilege of initiative might be strained to a dangerous extent if every section-leader should consider it discreet to retire directly he found himself pressed sorely or somebody else giving way on either flank. In Colonel Lumsden’s words—so eloquent because of their undemonstrative simplicity—Lieutenant Crane ‘deemed it his duty to hold his position as long as possible.’ How many thousands of times in the course of our ‘rough island story’ has the Empire had cause to be thankful to the men who could thus interpret duty as a thing above all personal considerations, calling for self-sacrifice to the end! It was part of the white man’s burden which Lieutenant Crane and his comrades of No. 2 Section had taken upon them long ago, when they settled as indigo-planters in the wilds of Behar, Mozufferpore, and Saran, where Europeans are few and natives many. In such districts the Sahib’s lot may be to face a riotous multitude of frenzied fanatics at any moment, and he must fight it out single-handed, dying if need be under cruel torture, but never showing fear. That was the training-school from which No. 2 Section of A Company came. They were indigo-planters to a man, self-reliant and imbued with a high sense of the Sahib’s responsibility to the race from which he springs. Knowing this, we cannot wonder that the leader deemed it his duty to fight for the ground he had been ordered to hold rather than give way an inch, no matter what odds were