THE CANADIAN CONTINGENTS.
The Canadian Contingents. By Sanford Evans. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.)—This book, though it will, like all compilations, prove rather dry reading to the general reader, should be of use to the military historian who desires to see the splendid and varied work of the Canadian troops brought together in one volume. It is indeed a magnificent record. Never did braver or better soldiers leave their homes to fight in a good cause than the Canadians. Their deeds were worthy of the land from which they came. " For the press of knights not every brow can receive the laurel," but if from many we must single out one incident, it must be that of the corporal and two men of the Canadian Mounted Rifles who held a post near Honingspruit Station for eight hours against sixty Boers. Here is the account of the incident :— " The tale of the heroism of the three who were left was thus told by Lieutenant Davidson to Mr. Richmond Smith of the Montreal Star : It was long odds, three men against sixty, but these Canadians from Pincher Creek were stout-hearted fellows who did not know the meaning of the word fear, and rattling good shots into the bargain. For eight hours they fought, the number of their opponents increasing as the hours went by, until there were close to a hundred burghers pouring in a fusillade of rifle shots at the three men who held the crossing over the rail- way line. Shortly after noon Corporal Morden was seriously wounded with a bullet through the chest. He never gave up, however, and kept on firing until, later on, another Hauser bullet crashed through his brain. About two o'clock another one of the little party, Trooper Kerr, was wounded. At that time the force consisted of two wounded men and Corporal Miles, who was in charge of the outpost. About half-past two Kerr was shot. through the heart, and a little later Corporal Miles received a bullet wound in the shoulder. He did not give in though for all that, but continued firing, and used up the cartridges of his dead companions after his own had been exhausted. About three o'clock in the afternoon a train arrived at Honingspruit Station from the north, and the Boers withdrew and attacked the train. The garrison, however, managed to keep them at bay until a train with troops arrived from Kroonstadt, when the enemy, as usual, retired. Then it was that I had time to go back and see what had become of the little outpost on the railway line south of the camp, which I knew had been heavily engaged all day. I found Corporal Miles lying behind a little mound of earth suffering from a severe wound in the shoulder, and a short distance from him the dead bodies of Corporal Morden and Trooper Kerr, both of whom had been first wounded and afterwards killed by second shots. Though serious, Miles's wound was not by any means a fatal one, and he was at once taken to the hospital at Kroonstadt, from where he was sent to Cape Town later on. It is impossible to overestimate the im- portance of the gallant conduct of these three men. But for their splendid work our position would have been completely surrounded, and the chances are the whole garrison would either have been killed or captured."
That is an act worthy of a poet's pen. How it would have delighted Sir Francis Doyle. He might have made of it a ballad like " The Private of the Buffs." May we not hope that it will inspire Mr. Kipling or Mr. Newbolt ?
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