Bullock

At the battle of Colenso Colonel Bullock, commanding the 2^nd Battalion Devonshire regiment, was a little in front of the abandoned guns with two sections of men. He had not been given the order to retire and was therefore continuing with the fight. When Field-Cornet Cheere Emmett of the Vryheid Commando approached, accompanied by a British ambulance orderly carrying a Red Cross flag, to collect the guns Bullock opened fire on him. However some of the Devons were already standing up to surrender and it took a blow from a Boer rifle butt to stun him.

A private Glanfield of the Devons relates that when Colonel Bullock was struck on the head a colleague bayoneted the Boer who did it. The private was afterwards shot.

During Bullock’s ride to Pretoria he wrote a note which he pinned to his tunic on which was written, ‘I am the officer who lost ten cannons at Colenso’