MAJOR GREVILLE. V.C.

Blue cloth boards with gilt lettering on the front cover and the spine. Some wear and scuffing to the spine ends, and discolouration to the end papers. There is a bookplate of the previous owner on fep. A good copy.

“Many books dealing with comparatively recent events in South Africa have been published of late. The addition of another to the long list may seem to need an explanation. It consists in the fact that whereas the majority of previous volumes on the subject are written by Englishmen, this one is the work of a Boer. The question of the rights and wrongs of the campaign, now happily concluded, is a large one. Much may be said on either side. The best endeavours of two nations were freely spent in upholding views that they conscientiously believed to be entirely justifiable. In that long and bitter struggle that ensued, Britons and Boers laid down their lives alike at the call of their countries, united in one common bond of loyalty to the Governments they served. If from the following pages English readers may gain fuller sympathy with their new fellow-subjects the author’s aim will have been achieved.

While I was a prisoner in India (to which country I was deported after capture at Epumileni) Rudyard Kipling’s poem, ” The Islanders,” made its appearance. The reflections cast therein on sports-men struck me as being scarcely deserved. In the long-drawn-out hostilities in which I had taken part I had come across a considerable number of ” flannelled fools ” and ” muddied oafs ” bravely serving their country’s cause.

Among these, one Englishman in particular stood out in my mind, and it occurred to me that I might materially lessen the tedium of my captivity by weaving a story around his personality. To this fact, the accompanying book owes its existence.

During the time I was at work on it I made no secret of Maurice Greville’s identity. One day, to my great surprise, Major G. A. Ivatt, Lincoln Regiment, the commandant of the Boer Prisoners of War camp at Trichinopoly, came up to me and exclaimed, ” I say, Landdrost, your man has actually got the V.C. His name is in the last Gazette.” Thus it happened that what I had originally written as fiction subsequently became fact.”

The chapters touch on De Aar Camp, Battle of Belmont, Modder River, Spion Kop, Majuba, Abraham’s Kraal, and others.

Source: The preface.