| Description | Letter from Frederick W Davidson, in the Boer War, to his aunt and cousins in which he tells them that they are enjoying a period of calm in the fighting; he got left behind 'owing to the sick' but has been relieved today by the Scotch Hospital under Sir James Clark; he describes the hospital set up including their electric lighting - 'one of their chief hits ... because the lighting of hospitals is one of the most difficult problems to cope with'; he describes one of their recent patients - ' a Boer prisoner, a bright eyed little lad not more than fifteen years old who has enteric'; he expects to have to fight every inch of the way when they do advance including big battles at Kronstadt and the Vaal river and a long seige at Praetoria; he would rather she did not publish his letters as it would debar him from telling her anything interesting; he relates a story of the death of Colonel Gough (son of Viscount Gough of 'Goojerat', Lord Wolseley's private secretary and on Lord Meltham's staff) who actually 'blew his brains out' following 'Mager's Fontein blunder' which resulted in the deaths of General [Wauchope] and the Highland Brigade; there was to be an enquiry and the rumour going round was that the suicide was to screen his superiors; General [Garonne] has been sent home in disgrace; Roberts, French and Baden-Powell are the heroes of the campaign; his mother never writes; he describes Bloem Fontein; tells of rumours that the natives have changed their dress; martial law has been declared in Bloem Fontein as the people have followed the military.
The letter is continued 6 days later with the news that he has received orders to move; John Ainslie of Pitfour is here as a soldier in the Imperial Yeomanry and others he used to know from home; 180,000 men are on the march to Praetoria with Lords Robert and Kitchener at their head, he remarks, 'it beats cock fighting,' April [1900]. |