Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer
Fenn George Manville
English
We will print you a perfectly bound paperback of your selected title and send it to you at your nominated address
Below is a summary of Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer
Charge! A Story of Briton and Boer, by George Manville Fenn.
________________________________________________________________________
The earliest European settlers in South Africa were mostly Dutch. They
were known as Boers, the Dutch word for farmer. They were doing well,
and even though the British had come to rule the country, their
comfortable and profitable existence was all that most of them wanted.
However, an Irishman of the name of Moriarty thought otherwise, and
urged them to rebel against the British, simply because there is a class
of Irish people that enjoy fights, and the English are their nearest
neighbours, and Ireland was part of Great Britain.
Val Moray is the son of John Moray, who is farming in South Africa, and
he has a brother, Bob. There is also a Kaffir worker on the farm, Joe,
or by his preference Joeboy. Joeboy is a co-hero of the story.
Moriarty arrives with a few of the Boers and demands that Val be handed
over to him to go and fight the British. Val has to go, but manages to
escape. He gets to a place where his father has whispered to him would
be where Joeboy was to wait for him. They meet up with a Light Horse
unit of the British army, where Val meets an old friend, Denham, and
they take part in various skirmishes against the Boers, in which they
are injured and captured, but manage to escape with the help of Bob and
John.
There is plenty of action, but one can't help feeling that the author
has bitten off more than he can chew, as these skirmishes in real life
became more than that, and the whole thing became a real, if pointless,
war. NH
________________________________________________________________________
CHARGE! A STORY OF BRITON AND BOER, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
HOME, SWEET HOME.
"Hi! Val! Come, quick!"
"What's the matter?" I said excitedly, for my brother Bob came tearing
down to the enclosure, sending the long-legged young ostriches
scampering away towards the other side; and I knew directly that
something unusual must be on the way, or, after the warnings he had
received about not startling the wild young coveys, he would not have
dashed up like that.
"I dunno. Father sent me to fetch you while he got the guns ready. He
said something about mounted men on the other side of the kopje, so it
can't be Kaffirs. I say, do back me up, Val, and get father to let me
have a gun."
"Ugh! you bloodthirsty young wretch!" I cried as I started with him for
our place, now partly hidden by the orchard--apple and pear trees--I had
helped to plant seven years before, when father really pitched his tent
by the kopje, and he, Bob--a little, round-headed tot of a fellow then--
Aunt Jenny, and I lived in the canvas construction till we had built a
house of stone.
The orchard was planted long before the tent was given up--all trees
that father had ordered to be sent to us from a famous nursery in
Hertfordshire. How well I remember it all!--the arrival of the four big
bundles wrapped in matting, and tied behind a great Cape wagon drawn by
twenty oxen, whose foreloper was a big, shiny black fellow, who wore a
tremendous straw hat, and seemed to think that was all he needed in the
way of clothes, as it was big enough to keep off the sun (of which there
was a great deal) and the rain (of which there was little). In fact, he
wore scarcely anything else--only part of a very old pair of canvas
trousers, which he made comfortable and according to his taste by
cutting down at the top, so as to get rid of the waist, and tearing
close in the fork till the legs were about three inches long.
I remember it all so well: seeing the foreloper come striding along by
the foremost pair of oxen, holding one of them by its horn, and carrying
a long, thin pole like a very big fishing-rod over his shoulder, for use
instead of a whip to guide the oxen. Yes, I recollect it as if it were
only yesterday. I looked at him, and he looked at me. My eyes were
fixed upon those trousers; and I burst out, boy-like, into the heartiest
fit of laughter I ever had. As I laughed his eyes opened wider and
wider, and the corners of his mouth began to creep back farther and
farther till they nearly disappeared. Then, suddenly, his mouth flew
open, showing a wonderfully white set of teeth, and he gave vent to
"Yer-her! Yawk, yawk, yawk, yawk! Yor-hor!" Then he helped to outspan
the oxen, and I showed him and the man with the wagon where to find
water. At every order I gave he opened his mouth and laughed at me; but
he eagerly did all I bade, and followed me back to the wagon to help in
unloading the bundles of trees, taking the greatest interest in
everything, and lifting the boxes and packages of stores which had come
with the trees, no matter what their weight, as if he enjoyed putting
forth his tremendous strength.
"Well, Val," said my father as he took out his big knife to cut the
Back