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The following text has been archived here from our sister site, the Border Regiment Forum, which is set to close in January 2018. A wiki-based copy of that original post has been preserved here for reference purposes. Note: only selected posts from the forum have been archived (find out why). |
 Posted by Steve » 04 May 2009, 16:25
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.svg) Corporal Registered user Posts: 28 |
| Hi, I am new to the forum, the following letter was printed in the Keswick paper of the time.
Steve
“Dear Sir, About every letter I receive from home they tell me you very often ask kindly after me, also being a late member of E (your) company of volunteers, and hoping to return to them if I am spared, I thought it my duty to write you a few lines from the front. In the first instance, will you kindly thank Sgt-instructor Brown for the very good and heavy overcoat he gave me to come out here with, I have found it a great benefit in the cold nights. For the last six weeks we have been without tents , just laying our blankets down and sleeping in the open, also tell Sgt Gardiner I must congratulate him on his success at Cummersdale, it was a great pleasure to read it in the papers. It would take me too long to write to give you all the particulars since we came out here; but you will see from the Carlisle paper where we have been and what we have been doing plenty of hard work I can tell you. When we left Carlisle we started with 116 men; now we can only muster 67. Almost every place we came to we left some in hospital, but most of them will be alright by this time. As we are a flying column, any that are left behind seldom join us again; for we are almost everywhere and generally where there is no railway. When I do see a railway I am always happy, because it means full rations, 4 biscuits and 2 ounce of jam per day, and mail with letters and plenty of papers to read. Up till now we have heard of five deaths, we had a sad case just before we reached Pretoria coming from Johannesburg. One of our company fell out on the march and we have not seen or heard of him since; but of course he may turn up all right , he had a brother who came out here with the Cumberland & Westmorland Yeomanry. We have been under the personal command of Lord Roberts, Generals Hart, Brabant, Hutton Hamilton and Baden Powell he is a fine man we see him almost daily. It seems strange to tell you, but you know more about what is going on out here than we do, we are never told what we are going to do.When we know the enemy is near at hand and there is likly to be a scrap we are told to load magazines and to get into extended order, then we have to look out for rifle bullets and cannon balls flying about, we have become quite used to them now. One day a shell fell within 30 yds of our company but fortunately it did not burst one fellow said he did not care a button as long as it did not hit his canteen, when under fire you would not believe how cool the men keep, I would not myself had I not experienced it Just over a month ago we started from Pretoria we fought and drove the enemy as far as Balmoral, general French gave orders for our division to return to Pretoria (he would settle up with them very likely) that is what the Border Regiment are doing all the hard work and others getting the credit for itOur casualties on that journey were two scouts killed, three wounded, one native had his head blown off and six mules were killed. When we marched into Pretoria our company was the advanced guard , Lord Roberts , his staff and a large group of spectators were there to see us march past all the other regiments but ours had previously recieved new clothing so that we were very conspicuous owing to our tattered condition. On that march our brigade consisted of The Kings Own Scottish Borderers, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Royal Berkshire and the Border Rgt with scouts. The column extended 12 miles on the march - We had the finest big guns in the world with us, so we were likely doing some damage. |
| Posted by CockneyTone » 04 May 2009, 23:08
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.png) Lieutenant-Colonel Registered user Posts: 441 |
| Steve, a very warm welcome to the Forum and thank you for sharing this letter with us, it makes interesting reading. From my enquires into my Grandfather I understand that he was also in E Company so would have served alongside this chap Reay! Would love to see anything elseBorder/Boer War related that you may have.
Regards and best wishes, |