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
________________________________________________________________________