“ Streets empty of all but a few tired and listless men, stores without goods, shops without customers, a railway station without passengers, a post office without letters, stamps, or post cards. No words, indeed, can fully describe this city of desolation, this little colony of the almost hopeless, this poor, battered, worn-out, hungry town of Ladysmith, with a bright summer sun making mockery of its dismal streets. ”

“ As seen at night, the procession up to Chieveley was doleful and mysterious. The long line of silent men moving in clusters, each cluster with a stretcher and a body in its midst. Stealing slowly and cautiously over the veldt in the moonlight, they all made for the two white lights which swung over the hospital by the station.
The coolies carried their stretchers shoulder high, so that the body of the man they bore was lit fitfully by the moon as they passed along with absolutely noiseless feet. ”

“ The best and the worst of a man, so far as courage and unselfishness are concerned, come out when he is hard hit, and without doubt each one of the wounded at Colenso "took his licking like a man." Bravery in the heat and tumult of battle is grand enough, but here in the dip behind the gun hill, and within the unromantic lines of a field hospital, was a display of grim pluck, which showed itself only in tightened faces, clenched teeth, and firmly knit fingers. ”

“ Across the river are the bare, stony, trench-lined kopjes and hills held for so many long weeks by the Boers. About the foot of these bastion-like ridges is the squalor of a neglected camp, and on all sides are rifle pits and trenches and stone shelters and hidden holes. Man seems on this river bank to have gone back to the savagery of the cave dweller, and to be once more crawling on the earth. Beyond these low hills are the grey heights of Umbulwana towering over Ladysmith. ”

“ The same sunburnt men with blistered faces, but now even a more motley gathering than filled the field hospitals the day before--a gathering made piteously picturesque by khaki rags, blue bandages, casual splints, arm slings, eye bandages, slit-up trousers, and dressings of all kinds. Here they came crowding to the train, some limping, some hopping, some helped along between two stronger comrades, some staggering on alone. A man with a damaged arm assisting a man with a bullet through his leg. A man stopping on the way to be sick, cheered up by another with a bandaged eye. ”

“ The words of the chaplain alone break the silence, although now and then there comes across the plain the boom of the naval gun. And here, under the dazzling sky of Africa, and at the foot of a kopje on the veldt, the eight dead are laid in the ground.
There are no onlookers except myself and the little group of ten. They stand in a cluster at a respectful distance. Their heads are bare, and more than one man has hidden his face in his helmet, while others have turned their heads away so that their mates shall not see their eyes. ”

“ Each wagon was drawn by ten mules and driven by a Kaffir, and over the dusty hood of each the red cross flag waved in the shimmering heat. They came along slowly, rocking and groaning over the uneven veldt like staggering men, and each drew up at one or other of the little hospitals under the ridge. Every ambulance carried a certain number of wounded men who were well enough to sit up, and a smaller number who were lying on stretchers--the "sitting up" and "lying down" cases, as they were respectively called. ”

“ As the graves are being filled up the funeral party marches back to the camp with a brisk step. The slovenly ten, who are not taking the part of mourners, scatter. They wander off in twos and threes, and they have become curiously silent. Some have dragged out pipes from their pockets, and are filling them absently. One is whistling an incoherent fragment of a tune. They look towards the horizon, and perhaps see nothing but the barren veldt, or perhaps they see a familiar village in England, and within a cottage in the small street the figure of a woman with her face buried in her hands. ”

“ The heat soon became intense, and the march blank and monotonous. There was ever the same shadeless veldt, the same unending brown road, relieved by nothing but an occasional dead horse or mule; the same creeping, creaking, wallowing wagons, the never-absent perspiring Kaffirs, the everlasting cloud of dust, and over all the blazing sun that neither hat nor helmet could provide shelter from. ”

“ To many and many of the dying the last sound of which they were conscious must have belonged to the clamour of war, and it was well for those who heard, or fancied they heard, above the roar of guns the shout of victory. One officer, dying in the hospital at Spearman's, had his last moments made happy by the sound of battle. ”

“ The stretchers were placed on the grass, side by side, in long rows which extended across the breadth of the hospital. The men lying on them were not pleasant to look at. They formed a melancholy array of "bad cases." Each man was covered by a brown blanket, and within the hood of the stretcher were his special belongings, his boots and his haversack, and, with them, such delicacies for the journey as a pot of jam, a chunk of bread, some biscuits, a lump of tinned meat in a newspaper, and bottles (mostly with paper corks) containing water or milk or tea. ”

“ A home-coming like this is worth many days of hardship, many a Spion Kop, and many a dull week in a hospital tent. But it does not fall to the lot of all.
I remember at Chieveley one morning before breakfast watching a solitary man approach the hospital lines. He was as melancholy an object as ever a war has produced. He was a soldier who had fought at Colenso, at Vaal Krantz, and before Pieters, and he was now staggering towards the hospital, a ragged, broken-down, khaki-coloured spectre of a man. He dragged his rifle along with him; his belt was gone ”

“ Among the stricken crowd who had reached the shelter of the hospital there was many a groan, but never a word of complaint, never a sign of whining, nor a token of fear. Some were a little disposed to curse, and a few to be jocular, but they all faced what had to be like men. ”

“ Few of them will long survive the wind and the rain and the blistering sun, and the hand of the Kaffir who is lacking of fuel. So long, however, as they dot the solitary veldt they will be symbols of the tenderest spirit of good comradeship, of the kindly heart of men who are supposed to be little imbued with sentiment, and of that loyal affection for his friend which is not among the least of the qualities of the British soldier. ”

“ They came past my tent about breakfast time, and every morning I wondered whether the men with the spades would come, since, when they came, I knew that a death had taken place in the night, and wondered who it was.
As in some way symbols of death, as elements in the last services to be rendered to the dead, the men with the spades filled me with great curiosity. They came up cheerily, and when they reached the outskirts of the hospital the corporal would call out to any orderly he saw: "Well, nipper, how many have we got to dig to-day?" ”

“ As I have already said, the wounded took their turn of "hard luck" like men. A few were sullen, a few relieved their feelings by fluent but meaningless profanity, in which the Boers were cursed with as much thoroughness as was the Jackdaw of Rheims. The majority were silent or said little. The tendency of most of the men was to make the least of their wounds, and some of those who were the worst hit were the most cheery. They were, with scarcely an exception, unselfish, and were singularly patient, considering that the exercise of patience is not a marked quality in men. ”

“ All are in the best of spirits, and the collecting together of goods and chattels and the preparing of a hurried breakfast proceed amidst infinite chatter and many camp pleasantries. We are at last on the move. We are the last to go. This is the day of the long expected battle, and we are to push on to the front. The real fighting is to begin, and there is not a man who is not possessed by the conviction that the Boers will to-day be swept from the Tugela--if they have not already fled--and that General Buller will have a "walk over." ”

“ The surgeons in their shirt-sleeves were working for their lives. Some were busy in the operation-marquee, while others were going from man to man among the crowd upon the ground, giving morphia, adjusting limbs, and hurrying each of the wounded into the shelter of a tent with as much speed as possible. Yet, although the whole ground seemed covered with stricken men, the dismal ambulances were still crawling in, and far over the veldt the red cross flag of other wagons could be seen moving slowly up to the naval ridge. ”

“ The business of getting the "lying down" cases into the carriages is considerable, and everybody lends a hand, the surgeons being the most active of any. The berths in the train are placed one above the other, and the room for manipulating stretchers is small. The equipment of the train was very complete, and every luxury was at hand, from hot soup to iced "lemon-squash," and even to champagne. Many generous ladies in the Colony had seen that the train should want for nothing, and Major Brazier-Creagh took as much pride in his travelling hospital as if he had built it himself. ”

“ It is needless to say that a good number of unsuitable and undesirable men had found their way into the ranks. These were gradually weeded out, and under the discreet command of Major Wright the corps improved day by day, until the time Spearman's was reached they formed a very efficient, reliable, and handy body of men. They did splendid service, and one which was keenly appreciated. They were the means of saving many lives and an infinite amount of pain. Their longest tramp, of which I had knowledge, was from Spearman's to Frere, a distance of twenty-five miles. ”

“ There is little room in the tent for others than the surgeon, his assistant, the anæsthetist, and a couple of orderlies. The surgeon is in his shirtsleeves, and his dress is probably completed by riding breeches and a helmet. The trim nurses, with their white caps and aprons, who form the gentlest element in the hospital theatre, are replaced by orderlies, men with burnt sienna complexions and unshaven chins, who are clad in the unpicturesque army shirt, in shorts, putties, and the inevitable helmet or "squasher" hat. ”

“ There was a wide-spread belief that tobacco was a panacea for all ills, and any man who had the wherewithal to smoke shared the small luxury with his mates. If there was only one pipe in a tent it was kept circulating. One would see a man on one stretcher trying to arrange a pillow for a comrade on the next: the pillow in question being commonly made out of a squashed helmet with a boot inside it. The man in any tent who was the least disabled was never so well pleased as when he was given something to do for those who were under the same canvas with him. ”

“ The British soldier looked very smart in his khaki suit when embarking at Southampton, but at Frere he showed the effects of wear, and his tunic, his belt, his pouches, his boots and his face, had all toned down to one uniform tint of dirt colour. He was of the earth earthy. He was unshaven. His clothes had that abject look of want of "fit" that is common to clothes which have been slept in, which have been more than once soaked through, and which have more than once dried upon the body of the owner. ”

“ It is needless to say that the operation-tent is very unlike an operating theatre in a London hospital, but then the open veldt is very unlike the Metropolis. The floor of the tent is much-trodden grass, and, indeed, much-stained grass, for what drips upon it cannot be wiped up. There are no bright brass water-taps, but there is a brave display of buckets and tin basins. Water is precious, more precious than any other necessity, for every drop has to be brought by train from Frere. ”

“ War is ever the same: an arena, aglare with pomp and pageant, for the display of that most elemental and most savage of human passions, the lust to kill, as well as a dumb torture place where are put to the test man's fortitude and his capacity for the endurance of pain. ”

“ My small experience of the British soldier in the field leads me to think that he does not altogether deserve the title of the "absent-minded." The average soldier has, I think, the most anxious regard for his belongings, and although that anxiety may have been obscured or even dissipated by the boisterous incidents which attend an embarkation for the Cape, still when he reaches camp his mind is much occupied with recollections of the people at home, and with concern for their well-being. ”

“ They did a service during those distressful days which none but nurses could have rendered, and they set to all at Chieveley an example of unselfishness, self-sacrifice, and indefatigable devotion to duty. They brought to many of the wounded and the dying that comfort which men are little able to evolve, or are uncouth in bestowing, and which belongs especially to the tender, undefined and undefinable ministrations of women. ”

“ Kelly's spirits were never damped, and he joked on all topics whenever he had the strength to joke. He was a little difficult to manage, but was as docile as a lamb in the hands of the Sister who looked after him, and for whom he had a deep veneration. Nothing in the ordinary way upset this gallant Irishman, but just before the convoy started he did for once break down. Two bottles of English beer had found their way into the camp as a precious gift. Kelly was promised these bottles to take with him on his journey. In due course they were deposited in the hood of his stretcher. ”