[The Story of Baden-Powell by Harold Begbie]@TWC D-Link bookThe Story of Baden-Powell CHAPTER XII 9/16
He loves to recount instances which have come in his long experience, showing the soldier in the best light, revealing his pluck, his love of little children, his chivalrous championing of the weak, his handiness, his humour, his cheerfulness in depressing circumstances, his self-respect, and his honesty.
What was it that struck his attention most about the tempting work of searching Prempeh's palace for treasure? That the work which was entrusted to a company of British soldiers "was done most honestly and well, without a single case of looting.
Here was a man with an armful of gold-hilted swords, there one with a box full of gold trinkets and rings, another with a spirit-case full of bottles of brandy, yet in no instance was there any attempt at looting." And, eating out his own heart, on that bitter march back from Kumassi to Cape Coast Castle, he had eyes for the splendid doggedness of the British soldier: "In truth, that march down was in its way as fine an exhibition of British stamina and pluck as any that has been seen of late years.
For the casual reader in England this is difficult to realise, but to one who has himself wearily tramped that interminable path, heart-sick and foot-sore, the sight of those dogged British 'Tommies,' heavily accoutred as they were, still defying fever in the sweltering heat, and ever pressing on, was one which opened one's eyes and one's heart as well.
There was no malingering _there_; each man went on until he dropped.
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