Page:MKGandhi patriot.djvu/101

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86
AN INDIAN PATRIOT

was pointed out to him, he replied that he meant it as "a title of courtesy" for one who had done so much in this campaign.

The call to the front came on the day preceding the battle of Colenso, and the thousand Indians reached the scene of the engagement in time to render invaluable service in the removal of the wounded. They entrained amidst scenes of unusual enthusiasm, reached Chieveley at the moment of need, and, without waiting to satisfy their hunger, marched on to Colenso, and then toiled on at their beneficent work all through the night.

The experience must have been terrible, for the wounded were so plentiful, and visions of dying agony stamped themselves indelibly on the memories of those who saw. Everywhere, over the plain and down by the river, heaps of wounded and dead lay. Roughly speaking, one hundred and fifty were killed, and seven hundred and twenty wounded, in this engagement. it was a call for help to which the Indians eagerly responded, and worked beside their European comrades with rival devotion.

One incident Mr. Gandhi refers to with pride. When the brave son of General Roberts was brought in fatally shot, in the affair of Long's guns, an Indian