The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War: With a Description of the Operations in the Aden HinterlandRomer, Cecil Francis
History
The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War: With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland
Romer, Cecil Francis
Great Britain. Army. Royal Dublin Fusiliers. 2nd Battalion; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Regimental histories
[Footnote 4: Poor Hensley was not only one of the most
popular officers in the regiment, but also one of the best
and bravest. All his life he had been devoted to field
sports, and his fame as a plucky big-game hunter and skilful
shot was well known in many a Central Indian village and
Cashmere valley. Educated at the Canadian Military College,
he was a master of his profession, while the long months
spent in Indian jungles had turned him into a handy man
indeed. Wonderful and varied were the uses to which he could
put an empty paraffin-tin or biscuit-box, and excellent were
the stews he could produce out of a mess-tin. On one occasion
in India a wounded panther was mauling one of his beaters.
His rifle was empty, but without a moment's hesitation he
dashed in, and drove the animal away by beating it over the
head. Alas! poor Hensley, we could spare him ill, but, after
all, we know he died the death he would have chosen.]
Towards evening, the regiment received orders to move some few hundred
yards to the right, and bivouac. Colonel Cooper directed the companies
to close in succession, and march from the rocks to the new position.
This movement almost escaped the notice of the Boer artillery, and it
was not until the last company ('H') moved that two shells were fired.
They fell to the right and in front of the leading fours, and did no
damage. The battalion assembled in a narrow amphitheatre just below
the southern crest, and at the head of a valley leading to Fairview
Farm. Although the bivouac could not be seen by the enemy, except from
Spion Kop, it was not altogether sheltered from fire, for every now
and then a bullet would clear the crest-line and strike the ground
below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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