This is fiction surely?

Some years ago whilst protecting England’s interest in a far flung corner of her Empire, myself and the remains of my regiment found ourselves dug in behind a redoubt build from the bodies of our fallen comrades.
The sands of the desert were red with blood,
Red with the blood of a square that broke,
The Maxims jammed and the Colonels dead,
And the regiment was blinded with dust and smoke.
Though we regretted the Colonels loss it was not disastrous for we had long looked to Johnso’ McFarlane, a rough Irishman with red hair and eyes like two poached eggs, for leadership for he had been tried in the furnaces of many a Belfast bar and never found wanting.

Though our situation was desperate it was made even more so by the fact that we protected innocents caught up a strife of which they had no understanding.
There were aged folk on crutches,
And woman great with child,
And mothers who sobbed o’er babies,
That clung to them and cried,
And sick men borne on litters,
Borne on the necks of slaves,
And hordes of sunburned husbandmen,
With reaping hooks and staves.

Johnso’ gave his orders. “If I advance follow me, If I retreat shoot me and if I die avenge me”. So inspired were we that all fatigue and fear left us and our charge carried the day.