against him; or that, when he fell wounded, with Clayton Daubney, Henry Lumsden, and Upton Case dead beside him, others chose to share his fate instead of leaving him to the tender mercies of their enemies. To such men no thought of surrender could have come. Corporal Firth had a chance of getting away, but he went back to where his wounded officer and some old comrades from Mozufferpore were lying under heavy fire, and elected to stay with them as they held the Boers in check until nearly every cartridge was expended. Not before Daubney, Case, and Lumsden had been killed, Cyril Marsham, Stewart McNamara, Helme Firth, Gwatkin Williams, McGillivray, and Macdonald wounded did the Boers succeed in making any prisoners among the little band of indigo-planters, whom they had by that time practically surrounded within point-blank range. No white flag was hoisted and there were no ‘hands up,’ but rifles dropped from the nerveless grip of men who had fought till they were faint with loss of blood and there was no power in the numb fingers to press a trigger. Others laid down the weapons that were useless when their last cartridge had been fired; and then the Boers, closing in upon them, made prisoners of all who survived. If anybody blundered, the mistake was nobly atoned for. It is a story of which Lumsden’s Horse and the whole Empire may be proud. An early version of this incident, not quite accurate in some details, furnished a noble theme for the pen of Sir A. Conan Doyle, who, in his history of ‘The Great Boer War,’ writes, with a patriot’s enthusiasm and an enthusiast’s glorious disregard of fettering figures, as follows: Before entering upon a description of that great and decisive movement (the advance on Pretoria), one small action calls for comment. This was the cutting off of twenty[6] men of Lumsden’s Horse in a reconnaissance at Karree. The small post under Lieutenant Crane found themselves by some misunderstanding isolated in the midst of the enemy. Refusing to hoist the flag of shame, they fought their way out, losing half[7] their number, while of the other half it is said that there was not one who could not show bullet marks upon his clothes or person. The men of this corps, Volunteer Anglo-Indians, had abandoned the ease and even luxury of Eastern life for the hard fare and rough fighting of this most trying campaign. In coming they had set the whole Empire an object-lesson in spirit, and now on their first field they set the Army an example of military virtue. The proud traditions of Outram’s Volunteers have been upheld by the men of Lumsden’s Horse. CHAPTER IX _AFTER OSPRUIT—SOME TRIBUTES TO MAJOR SHOWERS AND OTHER HEROES_ [Illustration: MAJOR EDEN C. SHOWERS (KILLED AT HOUTNEK)] ]