Intombi Spruit
for their reception. The contention was, of course, preposterous, and
based moreover on the insulting assumption that our General had been
guilty of sheltering effective combatants behind an emblem which all
civilised nations have agreed to respect. Possibly the enemy may seek to
show that we are not above suspicion in such things, by reference to a
skirmish in which one of our batteries did open from a position
directly in front of ambulance waggons. These were outspanned near a
field hospital when the affair began, and as it was thought necessary to
get the wounded out of possible danger quickly, they had to be removed
some little distance in dhoolies. Meanwhile the Boers were getting guns
on to a kopje where they might have enfiladed one of our most important
lines of defence. To stop them in time a battery had to be brought into
action, and the only ground from which it could have shelled the kopje,
to frustrate the enemy's purpose of mounting a gun there, was just in
front of the ambulance waggons. Care, however, had been taken in that
case to lower the Red Cross flag, so that our artillery cannot be
accused of using it as a "stalking horse," though each waggon bears the
same symbol painted conspicuously on its canvas awning. These are
matters about which some ill-feeling has been aroused, but they do not
lessen our appreciation of acts by which individual Boers have shown
magnanimity while smarting under losses that must have been bitterly
humiliating to them.

When our cavalry reconnaissance was pushed forward after the successful
night attack on Gun Hill, the Hussars got into a very tight place, from
which they extricated themselves by a dash that cost many lives, and
some wounded were left on the field with their dead comrades. Ambulances
were sent out for them under a flag of truce. As one Hussar was being
carried on a stretcher, a young Boer jeered at him, using epithets that
were so coarse and cowardly that they roused the ire of a bearded
veteran who probably fought against our troops nineteen years ago. With
one blow he felled the youngster, and thereby gave him an object-lesson
in the treatment that is meet for those who abuse a helpless foe. To
chivalry of a similar kind Captain Paley owed his life when wounded
after the night attack on Surprise Hill, according to the story told by
one who heard it while the wounded officer was being brought back to
camp next day. In the confusion and dar