Page:For remembrance, soldier poets who have fallen in the war, Adcock, 1920.djvu/57

Rh came of a notable fighting stock; his father and two brothers were in the Army, and two other brothers had entered the Navy. From his childhood he revelled in tales of military prowess; 'his greatest longing had always been to be a soldier,' we are told; but his sight was defective and he could not pass the medical examination. Making the best of his disappointment, he went to British East Africa, won the adoration of the natives by his good comradeship and boundless daring, and grew famous there as a big game hunter. The outbreak of war gave him his opportunity, and he fought as a trooper in the British East African Force. But news that his brother had been killed in action in Flanders brought him home, and he succeeded in getting gazetted captain in his brother's regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. 'He refused a good appointment on the staff of the force then advancing into German East Africa,' says M. P. Willcocks, 'went to France early in 1916, and within three weeks was commanding in the Great Push at Mametz, on