On that occasion, four Englishmen played the best team in Australia, composed of the three brothers Camperdown and Mr. Wellesley. It came off on the Moonee Valley ground; it was a notable society function—Her Excellency Lady Brassey, the wife of the Governor of the day, presenting the prizes on the ground.
It was stubbornly contested, but ended in a draw; Colonel St. Quintin, who happened to be in Australia at the time, acted as umpire.
So much interested in the game were they, so lost in admiration of the beauty and high quality of the ponies, that, hearing there were to be two club games played at Hurlingham on the following Wednesday, they arranged to attend. To their surprise and delight Lord Roberts and Lady Aileen arrived to witness the play.
Lord Harrington’s team consisted of the Duke of Westminster, Captain Neil Haig, his Lordship himself, and Mr. de Kooep. A close finish, with a draw, was the result. The day was lovely, the play admirable, but one feature of the meeting particularly interested the Australian contingent. Vanda, whose eyes seemed to be everywhere, exclaimed suddenly: ‘Why, there’s our West Australian friend Gerald Branksome; and, just fancy! it must be his wife with him. We heard he was to be married this month, in London, to the daughter of a high official in Albany, or Perth, or somewhere. How pretty she is—so well dressed too! What fun meeting them here! Don’t you see them, Hermie? What a swell Gerald looks—tall hat—frocker—most accurate!’
The pair of spectators thus favourably reviewed were seen to be in conversation with Captain Haig, after which, the recent bridegroom retired into the recesses of the dressing pavilion, whence he shortly emerged in full polo costume, a few minutes before the Victoria Cross Race was started. A tall, well-built, fair-haired young man, he slipped into the saddle on a club pony, led out for him, with the ease of a practised performer, after carefully altering the stirrup leathers. The game included dismounting, and lifting to the saddle a dummy, presumably a wounded comrade, and afterwards clearing the hurdles on the course—a feat requiring more than average strength, activity, and horsemanship. This feat was performed at least once, during the late Boer War, by a member of a New South Wales contingent. He deliberately returned under fire for the purpose—the feat taking place during a very hot encounter with the Boers, who had ambushed a scouting party. The leaden hail was so close and deadly that the clothes of the rescuer and his comrade were riddled. Neither was seriously injured, but the poor ‘Waler’ who gamely carried his riders out of danger received his death wound. The Australian—for such he was—was accorded the rare and precious, almost unique, decoration of the ‘Queen’s Scarf.’