In the Ranks of the C.I.V.
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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Publisher Description
With some who left for the War it was "roses, roses, all the way". For us, the scene was the square of St. John's Wood Barracks at 2 A. M. on the 3rd of February, a stormy winter's morning, with three inches of snow on the ground, and driving gusts of melting flakes lashing our faces. In utter silence the long lines of horses and cloaked riders filed out through the dimly-lit gateway and into the empty streets, and we were off at last on this long, strange journey to distant Africa.
Customer Reviews
An interesting read
A fascinating insight into the life of a volunteer soldier during the Boer War in1900. Childers describes the life of a common soldier in a unit on the trail of the elusive Boer commandant Christiaan De Wet, at a time when guns were hauled into place by teams of oxen and horses were still an important means of troop transport.
Written a couple of years before his famous novel "Riddle of the Sands", it's clear that at the time, although he sympathises with the Boers, Childers was a big supporter of the Empire and British expansionist policies, and he also comments on the fervour of Irish troops fighting in the British army and wonders why some of their compatriots want home rule for Ireland. But after finishing this book I went on to read more about the life of Childers, to find that he changed his tune completely a few years later, becoming an Irish Republican and eventually being executed in 1922 during the Irish Civil War.
Interesting stuff, and the book is well worth reading.