On 29 May 1901, by now an experienced and decorated full Lieutenant, George fought in a particularly savage encounter at Vlakfontein, South Africa. H Company, made up of 5 officers and 95 men, was part of a larger force moving towards Mafeking and although appearing well protected by the rest of the battalion, H Company took the brunt of the action. Outnumbered six to one, only 28 men survived.
Lt Armstrong retired from the Army in 1907 to live a gentleman's life at Broadoak, Semley, his mother having recently purchased the property. A keen follower of the South & West Wilts Foxhounds, he also farmed horses and cattle on the 50 acres that went with the house. A bachelor and, believed to be an only child, he lived with his mother, there being no record of his father at Semley.
His grave is facing in the opposite direction to all the others in the churchyard. For reasons that cannot be explained, it was the custom at that time to bury those who died by their own hand with their head to the east, while all other coffins are laid with heads to the west.
Just after midnight on Tuesday 3rd August 1915, Lieutenant George Dewrance Irving Armstrong, aged 36, fell head first from a window on the first floor at Broadoak. The doctor arrived on horseback but there was little he could do and the patient died at 6am from "compression due the fractured base of the skull."
There is little doubt that having seen war at first hand at Vlakfontein, Lieutenant Armstrong could visualise what his friends were facing in France and was frustrated beyond endurance because he could not help them. The jury returned a verdict of "suicide whilst of unsound mind".