During the South African Wars （1）between the British and the Boers, a British officer died a heroic death. Only a few weeks before, at a noted colonist's dinner table, he had confessed that he rather courted death. One of the Cape（2）newspapers had a serial romance, with the names thinly disguised, written round this officer, whose true story was that he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl, an assistant in a shop at Brighton（3）, and that his highly-connected relations were up in arms at the idea of such a marriage, his father requesting that he would seek service anywhere abroad.
He died with his face to the foe.
南非戰爭 （1）期間，英軍和波爾人對敵，一名英國軍官英勇戰死。他死前幾個星期，曾出席南非一著名殖民者的晚宴，承認自己有點希望死亡。開普縣（2） 一分報紙有個連載的愛情故事，以這個軍官為主角，連名字都幾乎沒有隱諱。真實的故事是：這軍官愛上布來頓（3） 一個美麗的女店員，但他的親戚都是顯貴人物，大力反對兩人結婚。軍官的父親還叫他找機會往海外服役，去什麼地方都不妨。
那軍官是和敵人正面交鋒戰死的。
（1）南非戰爭又稱波爾戰爭（Boer Wars），指一八八零至一九零二年兩場戰爭。 （2） 南非從前有開普縣（Cape Province）。 （3）布來頓是英國南部一個沿岸城市。