Show I I WHO IS BESPONSIBLEP Question Which t Wounded Boor Lad Asks but is Unanswerable London April Correspondence of the Associated ProaaJ Amid the columns col-umns that during the last few durnS days I have come by mail from war correspondents I corre-spondents thee came through the correspondent cor-respondent of the Dally I News who captured and released hl tale of a Doer Ind that toll how Boer ns well RR British heart are breuklng how I I burgher lt burled on tim veldt wlth I out v PTt IvnpnC of ihe ttIp wooden I box Tile captured cprreepojiclent SL as 4 talking with a group of Boers in their own camp What do you fellows think of Australians Aus-tralians as fighters he Inquired lie procceily HI asked the question carelessly care-lessly I but the answer that I got brought Inc to my hearing quickly For then I learned that more than ono gallant Australian ofilcer dear to me had fallen never to ripe again since I have been taken prisoner The man who spoke was little more than a lad n paleface slenderlybuilt son of the veldt He had tangled curly hair and big pathetic blue eye soft as a girls and limbs that lacked the rugged strength of the old Boer stock but there was the nameless something that indefinable expression In his face which wairanted him a brave man He carried one arm in a sling and the bandage round his neck hid a bullet wound > woundThe Australians fight he said simply They wounded mo and they killed my father Perhaps it was the wind sighing through the I hospital tents that made the Boer lads voice grow strangely husky possibly the same cause fled the blue eyes with tearsIt was In a fair fight lad I said gently I 3 the fortune of war 0 Yes he answered It was In a fair fight an awful fight I hope Ill never look upon another like It Damn the lIghting he broke out fiercely Damn the fighting I did not hate your Australians Aus-tralians I did not want to kill any < U them My father had no Illwill to them nor they to him yet he Is out there out there between two great kopjes where the wind always blows cold and dreary at night time The lad shuddered l makes a man doubt the love of Christ And now who will go back and tell mother and little Yacoba that he is dead that he will come to them no more Oh damn the war the lad called again In his pain I dont know God muwnl knows which side Is right or wrong but I do know that the curse of the Christ will rest on tho head of those who have made tills war for ambitions sake or the greed of gold and the good God will not let the widow and the orphan child go unavenged blood will yet speak for blood and It I must rest either on the heads of Kruger and Stcyn or Chamberlain and Rhodes |