Shelling the Red Cross

A dramatised Boer War scene

The horrors of the war in South Africa - as filmed in the countryside around Blackburn. The Lancashire-based Mitchell & Kenyon, who made a number of similar re-enactments around 1899-1900, twist the knife in this short film. A nurse welcomes a number of wounded soldiers to a Red Cross tent. But this is no ordinary scene of Army life, instead this tightly presented little narrative includes mounting tension (one bombing attempt fails, the second proves successful) and an emotional twist (the nurse who greeted the wounded at the beginning is among the fallen at the end).