i6o The Course, the Camp, the Chase 



they have not been in action to-day.' He answered, ' Send 

 them at once, and tell them to double.' I did so, and when 

 I returned he said, 'Who else can you send?' I said, 

 ' This is G Company here, cutting the bush.' He said, 

 'Send them too.' They fell in and reinforced the others. 

 They were only just in time, as there was a very slight 

 stockade, and all the enemy were there. The garrison was 

 only thirty West Indian soldiers." Such is the record of 

 how all our wounded, stores, and reserve ammunition were 

 saved through the instrumentality of a chicken. 



The diary has some other interesting incidents also at 

 the same battle. 



" During the fight I was talking to an officer in the 

 Naval Brigade, when he suddenly stopped speaking, 

 coughed a good deal, fumbled in his necktie, and produced 

 a slug out of it. He was wearing a tie with a gold ring, 

 and the slug had hit the ring and then buried itself in his 

 tie, without doing further harm." This was a pretty 

 narrow escape, for after the slug had glanced off the ring 

 it had cut the necktie to pieces, and but for the resistance 

 presented by the gold, would have made a very awkward 

 wound in the throat. 



The fighting was very difficult, for the bush was so 

 intensely thick that it was impossible to see the enemy, 

 who lay flat down and crawled through it. One soldier 

 had his arm blown off in my presence, having touched the 

 barrel of an Ashanti just as the latter fired, and who had 

 been invisible until then. Thanks to the training under 

 Sir Julius Glyn, the Kifle Brigade were as much at home 

 in the bush as the niggers themselves, though the latter 

 had the advantage of being able to get about more easily, 

 owing to being stark naked. 



