The other military incident of the week, the action of
the armoured train near Esteourt, was not so favourable to the British. At 5 o'clock on the morning of Wednesday an armoured train with about one hundred and seventy men of the Dublin Fusiliers and Durban Light Infantry and ten blue. jackets with a gun started out in the direction of Ladysmith in order to reconnoitre the enemy's positions. As the train was returning our men saw the enemy, who fired on them, and almost immediately the two tracks in front of the engine were derailed by an explosion. Our men then kept off the enemy as well as they could while the line was cleared under a heavy fire. The engine was ultimately freed, and returned with twelve men to Estcourt. Mr. Winston C hu rchill, who was present as the war correspondent of the Morning Post, seems to have behaved with the utmost gallantry,—rallying the men and forming them so as to make a stand while the engine got away. The accounts of the affair are extremely confused, and it is not absolutely clear whether Mr. Churchill ultimately escaped across the veldt or whether he was taken prisoner, but it seems most likely that he and the rest of the officers fell into the hands of the Boers.
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