Maybe what this old accountant was thinking wasn't so uniquely American.

What he did was close to a one-man Battle of Omdurman. Which for a long time was a matter of chest-heaving national pride to the British and a huge boost to Churchill's personal myth. There are any number of Ukippers quite capable of fantasizing themselves into the colonial army's position and mowing down fuzzy-wuzzies with machineguns, they just don't have the weaponry to do it for real.