Robert
Abercromby Yule (Born 1817) Was A Very Noble Character And A Fine
Soldier.
He had served with distinction in the campaigns in
Afghanistan and the Sikh Wars, and was the author of an excellent
brief treatise on Cavalry Tactics.
He had a ready pencil and a happy
turn for graceful verse. In prose his charming little allegorical tale
for children, entitled The White Rhododendron, is as pure and
graceful as the flower whose name it bears. Like both his brothers, he
was at once chivalrous and devout, modest, impulsive, and impetuous.
No officer was more beloved by his men than Robert Yule, and when some
one met them carrying back his covered body from the field and
enquired of the sergeant: "Who have you got there?" the reply was:
"Colonel Yule, and better have lost half the regiment, sir." It was in
the chivalrous effort to extricate some exposed guns that he fell.
Some one told afterwards that when asked to go to the rescue, he
turned in the saddle, looked back wistfully on his regiment, well
knowing the cost of such an enterprise, then gave the order to advance
and charge. "No stone marks the spot where Yule went down, but no
stone is needed to commemorate his valour" (Archibald Forbes, in
Daily News, 8th Feb. 1876). At the time of his death Colonel R. A.
Yule had been recommended for the C.B. His eldest son, Colonel J. H.
Yule, C.B., distinguished himself in several recent campaigns (on the
Burma-Chinese frontier, in Tirah, and South Africa).
[43] Baker went home in November, 1857, but did not retire until the
following year.
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