Various

“ In the midst of all my prosperity, I had a vague terror of Nathan Boltz, believing that he knew my secret, and I hated him for his supposed knowledge of it. Once more my marriage was about to take place, and again Hilda’s death interposed, and saved Patricia from a life of shame. Bertram returned; and deceived by his sister, Nathan believed that in him he saw her betrayer. Then the grand principle of his life was worked out—forgiveness. The return of Colonel Lindsay helped on my ruin. I made a desperate effort to retain the prize which I felt slipping from my grasp. ”

“ These are the messages that give more pain even than the bullet or bayonet, and terrible it is to think that when men meet in battle the rapid fire of the rifle is doing its work not only in the field, but far away in distant cities and villages, where the sound of the fighting cannot be heard; and where there are women and children and old men to whom that fight will bring sorrow and pain and{47} even death, as surely as if the rapid rifle-fire itself had swept them down. This is perhaps the darkest side of the picture, the portion of the loss caused by war, which our statistics cannot touch. ”

“ You have cause to remember the ninth of April in the same year, Sir Sykes. So have I.’ And with a nod and a wink, Hold slid back the book into an inner pocket of his rough coat.
The baronet’s blanched face and anxious eye betrayed how deeply he was agitated by what he had heard.
‘What do you want of me?’ he asked abruptly, but in a tremulous voice.
‘Hark ye, shipmate!’ rejoined the other, leaning his head on his hand, while his elbow rested on the stained and chipped table beside him; ‘all in good time. Business is business, and is not to be disposed of in that sort of hop, skip, and jump way. ”

“ It is a fact that the actual number of men put hors de combat by artillery-fire is very few in any case. It really is meant to produce an effect on the morale of the troops attacked; that is to say, to make them nervous, excited, liable to panic, and apt to give way before a sudden onset. Hundreds of shells exploding on the ground and in the air, and scattering showers of fragments on all sides, dropping neatly over walls and barricades, crashing through walls and roofs, and searching woods and thickets, are apt to gradually break down the nerve of all but the steadiest men. ”

“ The revolution of 1848, which led to the abdication of Louis-Philippe, found Thiers but a simple soldier in the National Guard, and parading the streets with a musket on his shoulder, despite his diminutive stature. A man of his transcendent ability, however, could not be left long in so humble a position, and we therefore find the newly elected sovereign Louis Napoleon trying hard to win over to his side this unique citizen. But Thiers declined the honour, and remained a thorn in Napoleon’s side during the whole period of his reign. ”

“ When, however, the battle between the army and the people had really begun, the indomitable little man returned to Paris, and heedless of the bullets that were flying about, he ran here and there trying to collect adherents for the Duke of Orleans. He also had a proclamation of the Duke, as king, printed, rushed out with it, damp as it was from the press, and distributed copies to the victorious insurgents; but this operation nearly cost him his life, for the crowds on the Place de la Bourse were shouting for a republic, and a cry was immediately raised to lynch M. Thiers. ”

“ On their return, the village people could scarcely recognise the quondam bell-ringer in the accomplished gentleman and travelled man of the world. The soil had been ready to receive the seed; but while the intellect was enlarged the heart of the man remained the same. Thus it came about that on a certain happy day, Nathan, who was the affianced husband of Gertrude, stood once more in the belfry tower; and with her by his side, and the ringers clustered round, while Bertram and Colonel Lindsay looked on from the doorway, he begged that he might try his hand again. ”

“ And the others, well! the others are all on the lay more or less, to scratch up a living by their wits. It’s only the cream of the cadging profession that can afford to patronise the Rest. It’s quite a genteel hotel of its class, I assure you. But now you know why I don’t speak out. Better deal with me singly, than with all these blood-suckers, I should say. And so, as we understand each other, we need not enlighten others.’
‘Is there no more private place?’ the baronet began.
But Hold broke curtly in: ‘None, Sir Sykes, in a crib like this. Up-stairs, we’d double the risk of being overheard. ”

“ The domestic relations differ so much in varying conditions of life, that there are parents whose every thought and deed appear to be the common property of the home circle, and others who sanction no trespass on the inner self, the to auton of the Greeks, which each of us carries in the recesses of his own heart.
Sir Sykes Denzil was one of those men who, as husband and father, never carry their confidences beyond a certain convenient limit. ”

“ The baronet read and re-read this letter with the patient endurance of a sufferer under the surgeon’s knife. Nothing but his labouring breath and the deepening of the lines around his mouth and the furrows on his high forehead, betrayed the pain that this precious document, indited in a large sprawling hand, occasioned him. ”

“ At first there are few men in them; most of the wounded that have been treated are still at the field ambulances. In the evening they arrive more rapidly; next day they come in crowds, and the hospitals are encumbered with them. And now the railway system of the country comes to the help of the overburdened medical staff. Hospital trains—that is to say trains fitted with hanging-beds or stretchers, and provided with nurses and surgeons—carry back to the hospitals of great cities in the rear, all those of the wounded who can safely bear the journey. ”

“ The care for the wounded begins while the fight is actually in progress. No help is so efficient as that which comes at once. A man is hit. If the wound is slight, he perhaps does not know anything about it till the fight is over, when he perceives that there is something wrong with his leg or his side; or if he does perceive it, he is able to bandage it at once with a handkerchief, or the bandage that now is carried by almost every soldier. The surgeon of the battalion gives him his assistance if he is at hand ”

“ Such a sublime act of self-abnegation was sufficient to assure to him the enthusiastic love and respect of an intelligent people, and the esteem of the whole world, which may be said to have joined with France in weaving a chaplet of immortelles to place upon the tomb of one whose memory will be revered by all who respect indomitable perseverance and true nobility of character. ”

“ The great danger is exhaustion from loss of blood or from the nervous shock that follows a bullet-wound, which makes a man seem as if he were dying, though with a little help it soon passes off. To stop the bleeding with a tourniquet or a bandage, to give a drink of water or a little brandy, is the aid needed at the outset. This is done actually under fire.
The next help is provided by the field ambulances, or as they are very appropriately called in our service, ‘dressing-stations;’ these are established in shelter-places upon the actual battle-field in rear of the fighting line. ”

“ The problem as to why the stomach is during life preserved from destruction by its own secretion, was long a puzzle to physiologists; but it has been decided according to one opinion, that the alkalinity of the blood, which constantly circulates through the tissues, protects them from injury by its neutralising influence.
In plants the function of digestion is the same in principle, although the absence of a mouth and special digestive organs renders it different in detail. Plants require inorganic matters for support. ”

“ In two or three days the real numbers are known; for the dead have been collected, counted, and buried, with great mounds of earth that will mark the battle-field for centuries, and shew too where{46} the fight was hottest. The wounded, much more numerous than the dead, have been collected in the field-hospitals, and as many as possible are being sent off by train to the great hospitals of distant cities, in order to relieve the strain upon the resources of the medical staff and the volunteer aid societies working in the field. Hard work it is to deal with the immense mass of suffering men. ”

“ I’ll not say a word more against Carbery, and you may set your mind at rest. If the governor has anything to vex him, be assured that it is not in the least connected with so insignificant a person as myself.’ And, as though weary of the subject, he sauntered off. ”

“ Most gentlemen of the degree of Sir Sykes would have treated such a demand either as a piece of insufferable insolence or as the freak of a madman. The baronet knew well enough what sort of reception his neighbours, Lord Wolverhampton, Carew of Carew, or Fulford of Carstennis, would have given to a request so impudent. He was, as they were, a justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant, owner of a fine estate, one whose name was mentioned with respect wherever men did congregate.
The meekest of us all are apt to rebel against unwarranted dictation. And Sir Sykes was not meek. ”

“ The very steepness of the ascent in some degree protects the attacking party as they ascend, by making the fire of the defenders more vertical; whereas on a gentle slope each bullet has a longer course and more chances of doing harm. As a preparation for the attack on St Privat, and in order in some degree to destroy the steadiness of the defenders, the place was bombarded for some time with one hundred and twenty guns; then when it was hoped that the artillery-fire had cleared the way, three brigades of the Guards, the picked men of the German army, were ordered to carry the village. ”

“ The first help is always the most important; given at once to a slightly wounded man, it saves him from having to go into hospital and keeps him in the ranks; given to a fallen man, it probably saves his life. ”

“ Many more less fortunate than he have to wait till the battle is over, for comparatively few can be carried off during the actual fighting. Some, though too disabled to remain in the fight, can themselves make their way to the stations. They ask their way of any bearers they meet; or if they meet none, they look out anxiously for the white flag with the red cross that flies over the little harbour of refuge of which they are in search. The wounded men who are thus brought or come into the stations have their wounds dressed by the surgeons, with the help of chloroform if necessary ”

“ The so-called mummy-wheat which is said to germinate after a burial of some thousands of years, is an instance of this retention of the life-principle in plants. Light as well as heat also plays an important part in the mystery of vitality, although it is a curious but well-authenticated fact that the mere growth of plants is most rapid in darkness. ”

“ Meanwhile the hospital trains have distributed the wounded into the permanent hospitals at home or into special ones provided for the war. If the army is an English one, ships comfortably fitted up as hospitals have received the wounded at the nearest coast to the battle-field, and they are lying in comfortable hammocks, between airy decks, perhaps at anchor in some roadstead, or better still, going rapidly under sail and steam towards home. ”

“ The most effective range for artillery was about five hundred yards, and musketry-fire was exchanged at less than half that distance. Rifled weapons of long range have changed all this, and the introduction of breech-loading small-arms has worked a perfect revolution on the battle-field. In 1866 the Prussian needle-gun shewed in the fighting in Bohemia the terrible effects that can be produced by rapid rifle-fire. Every army in Europe was soon provided with breech-loading rifles ”

“ The heaviness of the German loss at the battle of Gravelotte was as we have already said, largely due to the failure of the Guards at St Privat.
From these statistics of loss in battle it may be imagined what a painful task and what severe labour are thrown upon the army which remains in possession of a battle-field at the end of the fight. The length of the lines in a general engagement like Sadowa is enormous, ranging from ten to fifteen miles; and the depth of the tract over which the fighting rolls perhaps from two or three to five or six miles ”

“ The deadliness of breech-loading fire has produced another effect upon tactics in battle. The spade has taken a place second only to the rifle, and no General occupies a position in battle even for a couple of hours without rapidly strengthening it with light intrenchments. These consist generally of a shallow trench, the earth from{45} which is thrown up towards the enemy, so as to form a little parapet in front of it. This is the shelter-trench which we hear of so often in war correspondence. ”

“ Gradually death, recovery, or removal clears the field-hospitals; one by one they are closed, their matériel and appliances are packed in the wagons of the hospital service, and with their staff of surgeons, dressers, and nurses, they follow the armies in the field. ”

“ Think what it is to have to arrange suddenly for even two cases of severe illness in an ordinary household, and then try to imagine what labour, care, and forethought are required to provide for many thousands of wounded men in the open country. ”