XVIITHE TWO WHITE LIGHTSMany of the wounded who were brought in between the 18th and the 24th of January came in after sundown. The largest number arrived on the night of Monday, the 22nd. It was a very dark night. The outline of the tents and marquees was shadowy and faint. The camp was but the ghost of a camp. Here and there a feeble light would be shining through the fly of a marquee, and here and there an orderly, picking his way among the tent ropes by the aid of a lantern, would light up a row or two in the little canvas town. In the front of the camp was the flagstaff, high up upon which were suspended the two white lights which marked the situation of the hospital. These lamps only sufficed to illumine a few of the tents in the first line. The flaps of these tents were probably secured and the occupants asleep.It was a weary journey to the hospital, and one can imagine with what eagerness the tired, hungry, aching wounded would look ahead for the two white lights. Rocking in pain on a crawling ox wagon, or jolted in the rigid fabric of an ambulance, the way must have seemed unending. Tumbling along in the dark, with no sound but the creaking of the wagon and the incessant moans of the shapeless, huddled figures who were lying in the cart, the journey might well have been one never to be forgotten. How many a time a tired head must have been lifted up from the straw to see if there were yet any sign of the two white lights. Would the journey never end, and the pain never cease? and was the broken limb to be wrenched every time the blundering wagon pitched and rolled? And why had the man who had talked so much ceased to speak--and indeed to breathe? Would they drive through the dark for eternity? and would they never come in view of the two white lights?It was a miserable sight to see these belated wagons come in, and they would often rumble in all night. They emerged one by one out of the darkness and drew up in the open space between the two central lines of tents, and between the few uplifted lanterns held by the sergeants and the men on duty. After they had deposited their load they moved away and vanished again into the night.Some of the wounded in the wagons were sitting up, but the majority were lying on the straw with which the wagon would be littered. Some were asleep and some were dead; and by the light of the lanterns the wagon seemed full of khaki-coloured bundles, vague in outline and much stained with blood, with here and there an upraised bandage, and here and there a wandering hand, or a leg in crude splints, or a bare knee. And round about all a medley of rifles, boots, haversacks, helmets, cartridge pouches and tin canteens.What the journey must have been to many I could gather from an incident of one of these dreary nights. A wagon had reached the hospital lines and was waiting to be unloaded. A man with a shattered arm in a sling was sitting up, and at his feet a comrade was lying who had been very hard hit, and who had evidently become weaker and less conscious as the wagon had rolled along. The apparently sleeping man moved, and, lifting his head to look at his pal, who was sitting above him, asked wearily, for probably the fiftieth time, "Don't you see nothing yet, Bill, of the two white lights?"XVIIIAFTER SPION KOPOn Wednesday, January 24th, came the terrible affair of Spion Kop. On the previous day some hint of what was expected was foreshadowed in the order that an additional hundred bell tents were to be erected in No. 4 Field Hospital. These tents were obtained from a brigade who were bivouacking, and were all pitched by Wednesday afternoon. They represented accommodation for an additional number of five hundred wounded, and it was, therefore, evident that an important engagement was at hand.On Thursday the wounded came pouring in, and they came in the whole day and until late at night, until the hospital was full. The number admitted on that day was nearly six hundred. Those who were deposited in the bell tents had to lie on stretchers. All were provided with blankets. In spite of the immense number of the wounded, they were all got under shelter by Thursday night, and had had their more serious injuries attended to, and were made as comfortable as circumstances would admit. Some of the staff went round with water and food, and others with morphia, while a third party made it their business to see that every man was bestowed as comfortably as extemporised pillows or change of posture could make him. The pillows were represented by helmets, or by the happy combination of helmet and boot, or by haversacks or rolled-up tunics.The volunteer ambulance corps and the coolie bearers did excellent service. The larger number of the wounded were on the top of Spion Kop. The path down was about two miles, was steep, and in places very difficult. The carriage of the wounded down the hill had all to be by hand. From the foot of the hill to the hospital the carriage was by ambulance wagons and in some cases by bearers. All the stretchers had hoods. There was no doubt that the wounded suffered much on account of the tedious transport, but it was rendered as little distressing as possible.The surgeons who went after the wounded on the top of the hill told us that the sight of the dead and injured was terrible in the extreme, the wounds having been mostly from shell and shrapnel; some men had been blown almost to pieces. The weather on Wednesday was warm, but was not to be compared with the intense heat on the day of the battle of Colenso. The temperature was that of a hot summer's day in England. Thursday was fortunately cloudy and much cooler.As to the wounded, there was the usual proportion of minor injuries, but on the whole the wounds were much more severe than those received at Colenso. This is explained by the large number of wounds from shell and shrapnel. The men, however, were much exhausted by the hardships they had undergone. In many instances they had not had their clothes off for a week or ten days. They had slept in the open without great-coats, and had been reduced to the minimum in the matter of rations. The nights were cold, and there was on nearly every night a heavy dew. Fortunately there was little or no rain. The want of sleep and the long waiting upon the hill had told upon them severely. There is no doubt also that the incessant shell fire must have proved a terrible strain. Some of the men, although wounded, were found asleep upon their stretchers when brought in. Many were absolutely exhausted and worn out independently of their wounds.In spite of all their hardships the wounded men behaved splendidly, as they always have done. They never complained. They were quite touching in their unselfishness and in their anxiety "not to give trouble"; but it was evident enough that they were much depressed at the reverse.The shell wounds were the most terrible and the most difficult to treat. One man had most of his face shot away, including both eyes. Another had the forearm shot off and two fearful wounds of each thigh dividing the anterior muscles to the bone. In one case a shrapnel had opened a main artery in the forearm, and the man came down safely with a tourniquet on his brachial artery composed of a plug of cake tobacco and the tape of a puttie. I cannot help thinking that this ingenious tourniquet was the work of one of the "handy men."XIXTHE STORY OF THE RESTLESS MANThe following incident may serve to illustrate the often-expressed unselfishness of the soldier, and his anxiety to do what he can for a comrade in trouble.Among the wounded who came down from Spion Kop was a private, a native of Lancashire, who had been shot in the thigh. The thigh-bone was broken, and the fracture had been much disturbed by the journey to the hospital. The man was given a bedstead in one of the marquees; the limb was adjusted temporarily, and he was told to keep very quiet and not to move off his back. Next morning, however, he was found lying upon his face, with his limb out of position and his splints, as he himself confessed, "all anyhow." He was remonstrated with, but excused himself by saying, "But you see, doctor, I am such a restless man."The limb was more elaborately adjusted, and everything was left in excellent position. Next morning, however, the restless man was found lying on the floor of the marquee, and in his bed was a man who had been shot through the chest. The marquee was crowded and the number of beds were few, and those who could not be accommodated on beds had to lie on stretchers on the ground. The man who was shot in the chest had come in in the night, and had been placed on the only available stretcher. The restless man proceeded to explain that the newcomer seemed worse off than he was, and that he thought the man would be easier on the bed, so he had induced the orderlies to effect the change. The man who was shot in the chest died suddenly, and in due course the restless man was back in his own bed once more.It was not, however, for long, for on another morning visit the Lancashire lad was found on the floor again, and again beamed forth an explanation that one of the wounded on the ground, who had come in late, seemed to be very bad, and so he had changed over. The present occupant of the bed was in a few days moved down to the base, and the restless man was in his own bed again. But not many days elapsed before he discovered among the fresh arrivals an old chum, who longed to lie on a bed, and thus the good-hearted North-countryman found himself once more on the floor.The moving of a man with a broken thigh from a bed to the ground and back again means not only such disordering of splints and bandages, but much pain to the patient and no little danger to the damaged limb. So this generous lad was talked to seriously, and with a faintly veiled sternness was forbidden to give up his bed again on any pretence. In the little attempt he made to excuse himself he returned once more to his original joke and said, with a broad grin: "But you see, doctor, I am such a restless man."XX"DID WE WIN?"One instance of the indomitable pluck of the British soldier deserves special notice. A private in the King's Royal Rifles, of the name of Goodman, was brought from Spion Kop to No. 4 Field Hospital in an ambulance with many others. He was in a lamentable plight when he arrived. He had been lying on the hill all night. He had not had his clothes off for six days. Rations had been scanty, and he had been sleeping in the open since he left the camp. He had been struck in the face by a fragment of shell, which had carried away his right eye, the right upper jaw, the corresponding part of the cheek and mouth, and had left a hideous cavity, at the bottom of which his tongue was exposed. The rest of his face was streaked with blood, which was now dried and black--so black that it looked as if tar had been poured on his head and had streamed down his cheek and neck. Eight hours had been occupied on the journey to the hospital, and eight hours is considered to be long even for a railway journey in a Pullman car.He was unable to speak, and as soon as he was settled in a tent he made signs that he wanted to write. A little memorandum book and a pencil were handed to him, and it was supposed that his inquiry would be as to whether he would die--what chance he had? Could he have something to drink? Could anything be done for his pain? After going through the form of wetting his pencil at what had once been a mouth, he simply wrote: "Did we win?" No one had the heart to tell him the truth.His memorandum-book--which is in my possession--was used by him while he remained speechless in the hospital, and certain of the notes he made in it, and which are here appended, speak for themselves:"Water.""I haven't done bleeding yet.""I've got it this time. I think my right eye is gone, and I can hardly swallow.""There are no teeth in front.""It aches a lot.""I'm lying the wrong way for my wound.""I found the trenches.""I've had all the officers over to see me.""He is pleased, the doctor.""Did my haversack come with me? If it did, there is some tobacco in it. You can give it to them that smoke."Poor Goodman, he had no mouth to smoke with himself. I am glad to say he reached England, is in good health, and is as cheery as ever.XXITHE FIGHTING SPIRITThe circumstances under which men enlist in the Army are, no doubt, varied enough. But not a few find their place under the colours in obedience to that fighting spirit which has for centuries been strong in the hearts of the islanders from Great Britain and Ireland. That spirit has anyhow carried the colours over the world.Among the wounded there are many who, to use an expression common on the soldiers' lips, "were fed up with the war": they had had enough of it. There were others who were eager to be at it again, who felt that they had a score to wipe off; and even among the desperately hurt there would be here and there a man keen for revenge, and full of a passionate desire "to have another go at 'em." These men, ill as they often were, would describe with a savage delight, and in savage language, the part they had played in the battle out of which they had been finally dragged on a stretcher. A little success, a victory however small, did much to lessen the torment of a wound and to gild the contemplation of a life henceforth to be spent as a cripple. One gallant lad had been paralysed by a Mauser at short range, and had little prospect of other than permanent lameness. He had been in the assault on Vaal Krantz, had escaped without hurt until just towards the end, and was shot as his victorious company were rushing the last trench. After he had been examined, and while he was still lying on his stretcher, I could not avoid the remark, "This is a bad business." To which he replied, "Yes, but we took the bally trench."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. He had sunk into a state of drowsiness, and was becoming gradually unconscious. Every now and then the boom of the 4.7 gun, firing from the hill above us, would rattle through the tents, and with each shot a smile would come over his face, and he would mutter with great satisfaction, "They are getting it now." He repeated these words many times, and they were, indeed, the last he uttered. Things were evidently going better with the army in his dream than they were at that moment with the real regiments by the river.Some most vivid suggestions of what may pass through the soldier's mind during the actual circumstances of war were afforded by the utterances of more or less unconscious men when passing under the influence of chloroform in the operation-tent. Before they fell into the state of sleep, it was evident that the drug, with its subtle intoxicating power, brought back to the fading sense some flash of a scene which may have been real, but which was rendered lurid, spectral, and terrifying by the action of the poison. Under this condition incoherent words of command would be uttered in rapid tones, full of an agony of eagerness and haste; and cries for help would be yelled forth in what seemed to be a maniacal frenzy. Many of the actual utterances that escaped these unconscious lips, and gave glimpses of a phantom war as seen through the vapor of chloroform, were too fragmentary to be remembered, but two at least were muttered with such an emphasis of horror that I took note of them.One of the wounded from Spion Kop had evidently engraved upon his mind the hideous scene of slaughter which the trenches on that hill presented. As he was being anæsthetised it was apparent that in his dream he was back again in the trenches, and was once more among his dead and mangled comrades. The vision of one wounded man especially haunted him and fascinated him, and at last he screamed out: "There goes that bloke again whose leg was shot away; blimy, if he ain't crawling now!"Another poor fellow had before his eye the spectre of an awful kopje. His fragmentary utterances made vivid the unearthly land he was traversing. All who stood by could picture the ghostly kopje, and could almost share in his anguish when he yelled: "There they are on the hill! For God's sake, shoot! Why don't we shoot?"XXIITHE BODY-SNATCHERSEarly in the campaign Colonel Gallwey, the P.M.O., organised a volunteer ambulance corps. Two thousand bearers were wanted, and in a few days two thousand were enrolled. Their duties were to carry the wounded off the field, to transport serious cases from the advanced hospitals or dressing stations to the stationary field hospital, and thence, if need be, to the railway. There were to be twelve on a stretcher.This corps contained examples of all sorts and conditions of men--labourers, mechanics, "gentlemen," dock loafers, seamen, dentists, a chemist or two, a lawyer or two, tram drivers, clerks, miners, and shop assistants. Many were refugees from the Transvaal, and the majority had been thrown out of work of some kind or another by the war. A chance of getting employment had, no doubt, induced many to enlist, while probably the greater number were attracted by a spirit of adventure, by a desire to get to the front and to see something of the pomp and circumstance of war.They formed a strange company when they mustered at Pietermaritzburg--a section of a street crowd in their everyday clothes, or in such clothes as were selected for roughing it. There was immense variety in the matter of hats. Belts were a feature. The flannel shirt, which was practicallyde rigueur, was replaced in an instance or two by a jersey. Collars were not worn; neckties were optional. There was no fixed fashion in the matter of boots; they varied from canvas shoes, worthy of a dandy at the seaside, to top boots fit for a buccaneer.As to the men themselves, they were of all ages, heights, shapes, and sizes--the men of a crowd. Some were sunburned, and some were pale. Some were indifferent, but most were eager. Some were disposed to assume a serious military bearing, while others appeared to regard the venture as a silly joke of which they were beginning to be a little ashamed.There is no doubt that the corps was in appearance not impressive. They were wild and shabby looking, disordered, unsymmetrical, and bizarre. They were scoffed at; and acquired the not unkindly meant title of the "body-snatchers." Later on the exuberant invention of the soldier dignified them by the titles of the "catch-'em-alive-oh's" or the "pick-me-ups."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. They showed the usual British indifference under fire, and went without hesitancy wherever they were led. Unfortunately it happened that many of the worthy "body-snatchers" were wounded, and not a few of them were killed.In the early days of their career the "catch-'em-alive-oh's" fell upon bad times. They knew little of camp life, and less of the art of getting the most out of it. They had no organisation among themselves, and many were incompetent to shift alone. They began as a mob, and they tried to live as a mob, and the result was that about the time of Colenso they had little comfort but that which is said by the moralist to be derived from labour. In their camp after the battle they had time to settle down. They entered the camp a thriftless crowd, and came out of it a company of handy men.They were popular with the soldiers. They had the gift of tongues of a kind, and could compete with most in the matter of lurid language. Their incessant hunger and indiscriminate thirst were a matter for admiration. They were good-hearted, and, although they looked wild, they meant well. Many a wounded man has been rocked to sleep on their stretchers, and on more than one dying ear the last sound that fell was the tramp of their untidy feet.XXIIISEEING THEM OFFOn the afternoon of Thursday, February 8th, the news came to the hospital at Spearman's that the army was once more to retire, and signs were already abroad to show that the retreat had commenced. At the same time an order arrived to the effect that all the wounded were to be moved at sunrise on the following day to Frere. Our stay at Spearman's--extended now to three weeks--had therefore come to an end.Among those left in the hospital were 150 patients whose condition was more or less serious. They had been kept under care as long as possible in order to avoid or postpone the danger of the long journey to the base. It was determined that these 150 men should be carried down to Frere on stretchers and by hand. And this was done, and well done, by the much-ridiculed corps of "body-snatchers."It was no light undertaking, for the distance was twenty-five miles, and the road was dusty and not of the best. Every step had to be tramped under a glaring sun, and the heat of that day was great. Allowing twelve men to a stretcher, 1,800 men would be required. This number was forthcoming at sunrise, and they accomplished the march in the day, reaching Frere at sundown. This was a splendid piece of work.It is not hard to surmise what would have happened to many of those who were the most ill if their journey to Frere had been by the ox-wagon, or by the still less easy ambulance. As it was, the whole convoy went down with comfort, and only one man died on the way, and he had indeed just reached his journey's end when his life ebbed away.Long before sunrise on the morning of the departure from Spearman's the hospital was astir; and while it was yet dark lights could be seen in most of the tents, and lanterns carried by orderlies or coolies were moving here and there among the grey lines. The two white lights which hung from the flag-pole in front of the hospital were still shining. By the time the shadows had vanished and the light of the dawn fell upon "No. 4," it was in a state of untidy turmoil. Everyone was on the alert to "see them off."In the marquees the last dressings were being carried out by candle-light. Clothes were being got together; helpless men were being dressed; blankets were being rolled up, and such comforts as the hospital could provide were being packed for the wounded to take with them on their journey. Cherished possessions were being dragged out from under pillows, to be safely disposed in a haversack or a boot. The grey light fell upon orderlies in their shirt sleeves bustling from tent to tent; upon piles of provision cases and of forage which were being turned out; upon heaps of stretchers; upon the rolled-up kit of the Army Medical Corps men; upon melancholy coolies who had been up all night, and were still crawling about, and were still in their night attire. This night outfit would consist, probably, of a turban, a mealie sack round the neck, and a decayed army mackintosh on the body; or of a turban, a frock-coat, which might at one time have graced Bond Street, and bare legs. Here and there in the indistinct light would be seen the white apron and trim dress of a nurse, who still carried the lantern she had had with her since the small hours of the morning. All were anxious to be up in time to "see them off."In due course, and even yet before the sun could be seen, the Volunteer Ambulance Corps began to form up outside the camp. They were nearly two thousand strong, and they were a wild-looking company. There was, however, more uniformity in their clothing now, because they had been supplied with khaki tunics, and with occasional khaki trousers. Some wore putties, some gaiters, and some had tucked their trousers inside their socks. A few had cut their trousers off about the knee and were distinguished by bare legs. A gaiter on one leg and a puttie on the other was not considered to be in any waydémodé. Their hats were still very varied, but many had possessed themselves of helmets which had been picked up on the field. Uniformity and smartness could, however, not be expected if one man wore a helmet and the next a tam-o'-shanter, the third a bowler hat, and the fourth a "squasher" or a headpiece of his own designing. They had red-cross brassards on their left arms, but these had become merely fluttering bits of colouring.This weird corps carried their possessions with them, and it was evident that in transporting their impedimenta they had appreciated the value of the division of labour. Many had military water-bottles, which they had probably picked up. Others carried their water in glass bottles, which dangled from their waists. Hanging about their bodies by strings or straps would be various useful domestic articles. Attached to one man would be a bundle of firewood, to another a saucepan, to a third a kettle and a lantern. Here a man would have in the place of a sabre-tache a biscuit tin suspended by a cord, or a hatchet and a tin-opener, or a spare pair of boots, which swung bravely as he marched. A popularvade mecumwas an empty jam tin (much blackened by the smoke of the camp fire) with a wire handle, and evidence that it represented a cooking-pot. Belts, knives, sticks, overcoats, rolled-up mackintoshes, and a general tint of sunburn and dirt completed the uniform of this strange company.Before they entered the camp the wounded had been brought out on stretchers. 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. Those on the stretchers presented bandaged legs and bandaged arms, splints of all kinds, covered-up eyes and bound-up heads, and the general paraphernalia of an accident ward. Some of the faces were very pinched and pale, for pain and loss of blood and exhaustion had caused the sunburn to fade away.The light of the dawn fell upon this woe-begone line, and dazzled the eyes of many with the unaccustomed glare. Those who were not too ill were in excellent spirits, for this was the first step on the journey homewards. Such were excited, garrulous and jocular, and busy with pipes and tobacco. A few were already weary, and had on their lips the oft-repeated expression that "they were fed up with the war." Many a head was lifted out of the hood to see if any old chum could be recognised along the line, and from those would come such exclamations as: "Why are you here, Tom?" "Where have you been hit?" "Ain't this a real beanfeast?" "Thought you were stiff." "We're on the blooming move at last."Many of the men on the stretchers were delirious, and some were almost unmanageable. One poor fellow was babbling about the harvest and the time they were having. He was evidently in his dream once more among the cornfields of England, and among plenteous beer. Another shook the canvas hood of his stretcher and declared with vehemence that he "would not go in any bally sailing boat, he was going in a steamer, and the colonel would never let his men go in a rotten sailing ship." Whereupon he affirmed that "he was going to chuck it," and proceeded to effect his purpose by rolling off his stretcher.When the Volunteer Ambulance Corps marched along the line of stretchers they were the subject of much chaff, and many comments such as these burst forth: "You're being paraded before the General. So buck up!" "Pull up yer socks." "You with the kettle! Do you take yourself for a gipsy van?" "We ain't buying no hardware to-day--go home." "You know there's a Government handicap on this job, and half a crown to the man who gets in first, so you had better hurry my stretcher along." And so on; in the dialect of London, of Dublin, of Lancashire, and of Devon, with infinite variety and with apparent good spirits.There were many anxious cases among this crowd on the stretchers. One, for example, was an Irishman named Kelly, a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was as plucky a soldier as the plucky soil of Ireland has ever produced. His right arm had been smashed on Spion Kop. He had been on the hill two nights; and when the darkness fell had spent his time in crawling about on the ground, holding the sleeve of his shattered arm between his teeth, dragging his rifle with his left hand, and searching the bodies of the dead for any water that may have been left in their water-bottles. He had lost an incredible amount of blood, and when he reached the hospital it was necessary to amputate the whole upper limb, including the shoulder-blade and the collar-bone. He went through this ordeal with infinite courage and with irrepressible good humour. He had been the strong man of his regiment and a great boxer, and, as he casually said, "He should miss his arm."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. When his eyes fell upon the delectable vision of English beer he could stand no more, and Kelly wept.I little thought when I saw Kelly off at Spearman's that the next time I should say good-bye to him would be in a hansom cab in Pall Mall; but so it was.When all was ready the stretchers were lifted off the ground in order, and the bearers filed out of the camp and on to the dusty track. The morning was like that of a summer's day in England, and we watched the long convoy creep along the road until it was nearly out of sight. The perfect quiet of their departure was only broken by the oft-repeated boom of the naval gun on the hill.XXIVA FUNERAL AT SPEARMAN'SThere were many deaths at Spearman's, and the burying ground was under the shadow of the clump of trees which stood at the back of Spearman's Farm, and of which burying place I have already spoken. Those who died were carried away to the mortuary-tent, and there each body was sewn up by the coolies in the brown army blanket or in a sheet. The sewing was after the manner of the sewing up of a package. The brown blanket, however, formed but a poor covering at the last, and it made little mystery of what it shrouded. Beneath its tightly drawn folds there was shadowed something that was still a man, for was there not the clear outline of head and chin and shoulders and feet? When the body was ready it was brought out of the tent, placed upon a stretcher, and carried to the grave. Over the bodies of the officers was thrown the Union Jack, but the bodies of the soldiers were covered only by the brown blanket or the sheet.There was one funeral which I have in mind, on the occasion of which eight were buried--eight who had been struck down on Spion Kop--four non-commissioned officers and four men.The funeral party drew up near to the mortuary-tent, and halted there in precise military formation. There was the firing party, who went first, with inverted rifles; then came the bearers, and then a small company from the regiments of the dead.Some little way off stood a cluster of men who had come, in a shy, apologetic sort of way, to see the last of their pals. They seemed to think that their presence near by the formal procession was an intrusion, and they huddled together, some ten of them, at a distance. From their attitudes one inferred that they did not wish to be considered as taking part in the funeral. They were pretending to be merely onlookers. They were restless, and disposed to shuffle their feet, or they kicked the earth up absently with the toes of their boots.Some of the ten kept their eyes fixed upon the mortuary-tent, to watch the bodies come out. As each of the blanket-covered objects was brought from the tent into the sunlight there were murmured comments from this small knot of untidy men--these men who did not want to look like mourners, but who were mourners indeed. "That's surely Ginger," says one of the number, pointing to the body last brought out. "No, that ain't Ginger," says his companion. "Ginger never had a chest on him like that. That's more like Jimmy Evans. Jimmy held hisself like that often."So they talked, and they kept up fairly well this pretence at a casual conversation. But some could not trust themselves to speak, and these kept their backs to the tent and kicked at the earth absently. Those who took part in the apparent nonchalant talk had a struggle, I think, to keep their voices from breaking and their eyes from becoming dim. The "things" they were bringing out of the tent, done up in blankets, had once been men who had, perhaps, enlisted with them, who probably hailed from the same town in the Old Country, and who were the subjects of many memories.When all the bodies were ready and the stretchers in line, the procession started, and marched slowly and silently round the kopje and along the glade that led to the trees by Spearman's Farm.But for the tents of a far-off camp the veldt was a desert. There was scarcely a human being in sight. There was none of the pomp of a soldier's burial; no funeral march; no awed crowd; no tolling of bells; no group of weeping women in black clothes; no coffin borne on a gun-carriage and distinguished by the helmet and accoutrements of the dead. There were only the eight bundles in the brown blankets on the eight stretchers. And some little way in the rear were the slouching company of the ten, who did not want to be regarded as mourners, and who, with occasional "sniffing," and perhaps a surreptitious wiping of eyes with a shirt cuff, were shuffling along with a poor affectation of indifference.In due course the last resting-place is reached, and here are eight separate graves in a line, and at the head of them stands the chaplain. He has on a college cap, a white surplice, riding breeches and putties. He reads the service with the utmost impressiveness. The men who form the firing party and the escort are ranged round the place of burial in precise military lines, and, in spite of the blazing sun, every head is bared. 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. Their pretence at indifference and at having been drawn to the funeral by mere curiosity is now of the very slenderest.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.XXVABSENT-MINDEDNESSMy 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.Among the wounded were always those whose first anxiety was as to the effect the news of their injuries would have upon mothers, sweethearts, or wives. And many a message of consolation was confided to the sympathising ears of the Sisters, and many a letter of assurance was laboriously written by those who had the strength to write.In the matter of letters the soldier takes profound interest. He writes whenever he has the chance, and makes a great deal of fuss about the performance. To most of those in camp the posting of a letter home is an event, and so precious is the pencilled epistle that the writer will hesitate before he commits it to the casual sack which is tied up to the fly of the post office tent, and which appears scarcely formal or official enough to receive the dirt-stained dispatch. For such dispatches, nothing less pretentious than a post office building or an iron letter-box seem fitting.Many a time have I seen a letter dropped into the sack with such an expression of insecurity, and such evident feeling of hopelessness as to its safe conduct, that the writer of the same has appeared to regret that he had parted with it. A post office official in his shirt sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth and a helmet on the back of his head, seems hardly to be responsible enough for the occasion; and if the letter-writer would venture to express a hope that his elaborately directed letter "would be all right," the post office deity is apt to regard this concern with flippancy. "There's the sack! Chuck the blooming thing in. It won't break," was about all the comfort he would get.The receipt of letters from home also was attended with an eagerness which was hardly fitting in an absent-minded man. The sergeant with the bundle of letters would read out the names on the envelopes in a military voice, ferociously and without feeling, and each man who got a missive grabbed it and marched off with it with the alacrity of a dog who has got a bone. If he could find the shelter of a wagon where the letter could be read unobserved it was well.The letters dictated to the Sisters in the hospital were apt to be a little formal. It seemed to be thought proper that expression should be curbed, and that the sensibilities of the Sister should be in no way shocked by the revelation of a love passage. One dying man, who was dictating a letter to his mother, thought he would like to send with it a last message to "his girl," and in answer to the Sister's inquiry as to what she should write, modestly said, "Give her my kind regards."There need have been no precise decorum in the wording of these last hopeless utterances, for if the sender of the letter "sniffed" a little as he dictated the message, the Sisters cried over them.When a wounded man came to be stripped it was common to find some precious keepsake or some secret package hung about his neck, and to which he clung with the earnestness of a worshipper to his fetish. One man particularly was much more anxious about a locket that hung on his hairy chest than he was about his wound. He seemed to think that so long as the cheap little trinket was not lost his life mattered little. In the operation tent he was reluctant to take chloroform until a solemn promise had been given that no harm should befall his locket, and that it should not be removed from his neck, I am afraid that the history of the locket ends here, for the loyal man died.Among the wounded brought in one day from Potgieter's Drift was a man of scanty clothing, who held something in his closed hand. He had kept this treasure in his hand for some eight hours. He showed it to the Sister. It was a ring. In explanation he said, "My girl gave me this ring, and when I was hit I made up my mind that the Boers should never get it, so I have kept it in my fist, ready to swallow it if I was taken before our stretchers could reach me."XXVIAT CHIEVELEY AGAINOn Sunday, February 11th, No. 4 Field Hospital once more reached Chieveley, after the tedious march from Spearman's of which mention has been made. The hospital was pitched near the station, and not far from the spot it had occupied on the day of the battle of Colenso. Chieveley is represented only by a railway station and a station-master's house. There are, however, many eucalyptus trees about these buildings, and the spot is shady. The ground stands high, and miles of undulating country are open to view. There are a Kaffir kraal or two in sight, and many mimosa groves, and beyond them all the line of the river. Chieveley, therefore, as a camp was well esteemed.The sojourn at Chieveley began with that terrible fourteen days of incessant fighting which ended in the taking of Pieters and the relief of Ladysmith. Every day at sunrise the guns began, and it was not until sunset that they ceased. Any who looked up from their work in the camp, and turned their eyes towards Umbulwana, would seldom fail to see the flash of a lyddite shell on the far-off ridges, or, clear against the blue sky, the white puff of cloud from a shrapnel. Every day the wounded came in, mostly towards evening. Fortunately their numbers were few.The days had again become very hot and very trying. It was weather which the soldier is apt to describe, in the vivid language of his kind, as weather "when a man should have his body in a pool and his head in a public-house!"Standing in the station at Chieveley was commonly to be seen the armoured train. Whatever iron plates could do to make a structure indestructible had been done; but to such beauty as a railway train may possess nothing had thereby been added. The sailors had, however, been busy with the engine of the train. The engineers had given it the outline of a square gasometer, but the "handy man" had covered the disfigured machine with ropes as with a garment. From the top of the funnel a veil of closely placed ropes trailed to the ground. A like panoply of ropes covered the body of the engine, and its wheels, and its cylinders, and its every detail. The officers called this production the "Russian poodle," but the soldiers gave it the name of "Hairy Mary"; and this name clung to it.During the movement to Spearman's, Chieveley had been carefully fortified. A space round the station had been marked off by a very deep wire entanglement. Trenches had been dug, and some sort of a fort thrown up. There were entrenchments about the stationmaster's mild little house, and before the windows were erected iron plates with loopholes such as were used on the trucks of the armoured train. Similar iron plates formed a barricade along the modest veranda, and the result of it all was that the small unobtrusive house was made to look fierce and truculent. The few bare rooms were used by the Headquarters Staff, and the rough tables and stools were littered with all sorts of war-like paraphernalia. Among these insignia of battle, murder, and sudden death were two strange objects which had been left behind by the looting Boers, and which seemed out of place. One was a stuffed jay, and the other a dressmaker's lay-figure or "bust." The bird was stuck upon the wreck of the mantelpiece, and stared amiably and foolishly from its perch. The "bust" was life-size, and suggested the torso of a black woman, with a little polished knob for a head. It may have at one time graced the salon of a Parisian dressmaker. It was, however, now no longer used to show off dresses, trimmings and flounces, for a helmet surmounted the graceful chest, and belts, carrying pistols and swords, hung from the fine shoulders or clung to the delicate waist.
XVII
THE TWO WHITE LIGHTS
Many of the wounded who were brought in between the 18th and the 24th of January came in after sundown. The largest number arrived on the night of Monday, the 22nd. It was a very dark night. The outline of the tents and marquees was shadowy and faint. The camp was but the ghost of a camp. Here and there a feeble light would be shining through the fly of a marquee, and here and there an orderly, picking his way among the tent ropes by the aid of a lantern, would light up a row or two in the little canvas town. In the front of the camp was the flagstaff, high up upon which were suspended the two white lights which marked the situation of the hospital. These lamps only sufficed to illumine a few of the tents in the first line. The flaps of these tents were probably secured and the occupants asleep.
It was a weary journey to the hospital, and one can imagine with what eagerness the tired, hungry, aching wounded would look ahead for the two white lights. Rocking in pain on a crawling ox wagon, or jolted in the rigid fabric of an ambulance, the way must have seemed unending. Tumbling along in the dark, with no sound but the creaking of the wagon and the incessant moans of the shapeless, huddled figures who were lying in the cart, the journey might well have been one never to be forgotten. How many a time a tired head must have been lifted up from the straw to see if there were yet any sign of the two white lights. Would the journey never end, and the pain never cease? and was the broken limb to be wrenched every time the blundering wagon pitched and rolled? And why had the man who had talked so much ceased to speak--and indeed to breathe? Would they drive through the dark for eternity? and would they never come in view of the two white lights?
It was a miserable sight to see these belated wagons come in, and they would often rumble in all night. They emerged one by one out of the darkness and drew up in the open space between the two central lines of tents, and between the few uplifted lanterns held by the sergeants and the men on duty. After they had deposited their load they moved away and vanished again into the night.
Some of the wounded in the wagons were sitting up, but the majority were lying on the straw with which the wagon would be littered. Some were asleep and some were dead; and by the light of the lanterns the wagon seemed full of khaki-coloured bundles, vague in outline and much stained with blood, with here and there an upraised bandage, and here and there a wandering hand, or a leg in crude splints, or a bare knee. And round about all a medley of rifles, boots, haversacks, helmets, cartridge pouches and tin canteens.
What the journey must have been to many I could gather from an incident of one of these dreary nights. A wagon had reached the hospital lines and was waiting to be unloaded. A man with a shattered arm in a sling was sitting up, and at his feet a comrade was lying who had been very hard hit, and who had evidently become weaker and less conscious as the wagon had rolled along. The apparently sleeping man moved, and, lifting his head to look at his pal, who was sitting above him, asked wearily, for probably the fiftieth time, "Don't you see nothing yet, Bill, of the two white lights?"
XVIII
AFTER SPION KOP
On Wednesday, January 24th, came the terrible affair of Spion Kop. On the previous day some hint of what was expected was foreshadowed in the order that an additional hundred bell tents were to be erected in No. 4 Field Hospital. These tents were obtained from a brigade who were bivouacking, and were all pitched by Wednesday afternoon. They represented accommodation for an additional number of five hundred wounded, and it was, therefore, evident that an important engagement was at hand.
On Thursday the wounded came pouring in, and they came in the whole day and until late at night, until the hospital was full. The number admitted on that day was nearly six hundred. Those who were deposited in the bell tents had to lie on stretchers. All were provided with blankets. In spite of the immense number of the wounded, they were all got under shelter by Thursday night, and had had their more serious injuries attended to, and were made as comfortable as circumstances would admit. Some of the staff went round with water and food, and others with morphia, while a third party made it their business to see that every man was bestowed as comfortably as extemporised pillows or change of posture could make him. The pillows were represented by helmets, or by the happy combination of helmet and boot, or by haversacks or rolled-up tunics.
The volunteer ambulance corps and the coolie bearers did excellent service. The larger number of the wounded were on the top of Spion Kop. The path down was about two miles, was steep, and in places very difficult. The carriage of the wounded down the hill had all to be by hand. From the foot of the hill to the hospital the carriage was by ambulance wagons and in some cases by bearers. All the stretchers had hoods. There was no doubt that the wounded suffered much on account of the tedious transport, but it was rendered as little distressing as possible.
The surgeons who went after the wounded on the top of the hill told us that the sight of the dead and injured was terrible in the extreme, the wounds having been mostly from shell and shrapnel; some men had been blown almost to pieces. The weather on Wednesday was warm, but was not to be compared with the intense heat on the day of the battle of Colenso. The temperature was that of a hot summer's day in England. Thursday was fortunately cloudy and much cooler.
As to the wounded, there was the usual proportion of minor injuries, but on the whole the wounds were much more severe than those received at Colenso. This is explained by the large number of wounds from shell and shrapnel. The men, however, were much exhausted by the hardships they had undergone. In many instances they had not had their clothes off for a week or ten days. They had slept in the open without great-coats, and had been reduced to the minimum in the matter of rations. The nights were cold, and there was on nearly every night a heavy dew. Fortunately there was little or no rain. The want of sleep and the long waiting upon the hill had told upon them severely. There is no doubt also that the incessant shell fire must have proved a terrible strain. Some of the men, although wounded, were found asleep upon their stretchers when brought in. Many were absolutely exhausted and worn out independently of their wounds.
In spite of all their hardships the wounded men behaved splendidly, as they always have done. They never complained. They were quite touching in their unselfishness and in their anxiety "not to give trouble"; but it was evident enough that they were much depressed at the reverse.
The shell wounds were the most terrible and the most difficult to treat. One man had most of his face shot away, including both eyes. Another had the forearm shot off and two fearful wounds of each thigh dividing the anterior muscles to the bone. In one case a shrapnel had opened a main artery in the forearm, and the man came down safely with a tourniquet on his brachial artery composed of a plug of cake tobacco and the tape of a puttie. I cannot help thinking that this ingenious tourniquet was the work of one of the "handy men."
XIX
THE STORY OF THE RESTLESS MAN
The following incident may serve to illustrate the often-expressed unselfishness of the soldier, and his anxiety to do what he can for a comrade in trouble.
Among the wounded who came down from Spion Kop was a private, a native of Lancashire, who had been shot in the thigh. The thigh-bone was broken, and the fracture had been much disturbed by the journey to the hospital. The man was given a bedstead in one of the marquees; the limb was adjusted temporarily, and he was told to keep very quiet and not to move off his back. Next morning, however, he was found lying upon his face, with his limb out of position and his splints, as he himself confessed, "all anyhow." He was remonstrated with, but excused himself by saying, "But you see, doctor, I am such a restless man."
The limb was more elaborately adjusted, and everything was left in excellent position. Next morning, however, the restless man was found lying on the floor of the marquee, and in his bed was a man who had been shot through the chest. The marquee was crowded and the number of beds were few, and those who could not be accommodated on beds had to lie on stretchers on the ground. The man who was shot in the chest had come in in the night, and had been placed on the only available stretcher. The restless man proceeded to explain that the newcomer seemed worse off than he was, and that he thought the man would be easier on the bed, so he had induced the orderlies to effect the change. The man who was shot in the chest died suddenly, and in due course the restless man was back in his own bed once more.
It was not, however, for long, for on another morning visit the Lancashire lad was found on the floor again, and again beamed forth an explanation that one of the wounded on the ground, who had come in late, seemed to be very bad, and so he had changed over. The present occupant of the bed was in a few days moved down to the base, and the restless man was in his own bed again. But not many days elapsed before he discovered among the fresh arrivals an old chum, who longed to lie on a bed, and thus the good-hearted North-countryman found himself once more on the floor.
The moving of a man with a broken thigh from a bed to the ground and back again means not only such disordering of splints and bandages, but much pain to the patient and no little danger to the damaged limb. So this generous lad was talked to seriously, and with a faintly veiled sternness was forbidden to give up his bed again on any pretence. In the little attempt he made to excuse himself he returned once more to his original joke and said, with a broad grin: "But you see, doctor, I am such a restless man."
XX
"DID WE WIN?"
One instance of the indomitable pluck of the British soldier deserves special notice. A private in the King's Royal Rifles, of the name of Goodman, was brought from Spion Kop to No. 4 Field Hospital in an ambulance with many others. He was in a lamentable plight when he arrived. He had been lying on the hill all night. He had not had his clothes off for six days. Rations had been scanty, and he had been sleeping in the open since he left the camp. He had been struck in the face by a fragment of shell, which had carried away his right eye, the right upper jaw, the corresponding part of the cheek and mouth, and had left a hideous cavity, at the bottom of which his tongue was exposed. The rest of his face was streaked with blood, which was now dried and black--so black that it looked as if tar had been poured on his head and had streamed down his cheek and neck. Eight hours had been occupied on the journey to the hospital, and eight hours is considered to be long even for a railway journey in a Pullman car.
He was unable to speak, and as soon as he was settled in a tent he made signs that he wanted to write. A little memorandum book and a pencil were handed to him, and it was supposed that his inquiry would be as to whether he would die--what chance he had? Could he have something to drink? Could anything be done for his pain? After going through the form of wetting his pencil at what had once been a mouth, he simply wrote: "Did we win?" No one had the heart to tell him the truth.
His memorandum-book--which is in my possession--was used by him while he remained speechless in the hospital, and certain of the notes he made in it, and which are here appended, speak for themselves:
"Water."
"I haven't done bleeding yet."
"I've got it this time. I think my right eye is gone, and I can hardly swallow."
"There are no teeth in front."
"It aches a lot."
"I'm lying the wrong way for my wound."
"I found the trenches."
"I've had all the officers over to see me."
"He is pleased, the doctor."
"Did my haversack come with me? If it did, there is some tobacco in it. You can give it to them that smoke."
Poor Goodman, he had no mouth to smoke with himself. I am glad to say he reached England, is in good health, and is as cheery as ever.
XXI
THE FIGHTING SPIRIT
The circumstances under which men enlist in the Army are, no doubt, varied enough. But not a few find their place under the colours in obedience to that fighting spirit which has for centuries been strong in the hearts of the islanders from Great Britain and Ireland. That spirit has anyhow carried the colours over the world.
Among the wounded there are many who, to use an expression common on the soldiers' lips, "were fed up with the war": they had had enough of it. There were others who were eager to be at it again, who felt that they had a score to wipe off; and even among the desperately hurt there would be here and there a man keen for revenge, and full of a passionate desire "to have another go at 'em." These men, ill as they often were, would describe with a savage delight, and in savage language, the part they had played in the battle out of which they had been finally dragged on a stretcher. A little success, a victory however small, did much to lessen the torment of a wound and to gild the contemplation of a life henceforth to be spent as a cripple. One gallant lad had been paralysed by a Mauser at short range, and had little prospect of other than permanent lameness. He had been in the assault on Vaal Krantz, had escaped without hurt until just towards the end, and was shot as his victorious company were rushing the last trench. After he had been examined, and while he was still lying on his stretcher, I could not avoid the remark, "This is a bad business." To which he replied, "Yes, but we took the bally trench."
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. He had sunk into a state of drowsiness, and was becoming gradually unconscious. Every now and then the boom of the 4.7 gun, firing from the hill above us, would rattle through the tents, and with each shot a smile would come over his face, and he would mutter with great satisfaction, "They are getting it now." He repeated these words many times, and they were, indeed, the last he uttered. Things were evidently going better with the army in his dream than they were at that moment with the real regiments by the river.
Some most vivid suggestions of what may pass through the soldier's mind during the actual circumstances of war were afforded by the utterances of more or less unconscious men when passing under the influence of chloroform in the operation-tent. Before they fell into the state of sleep, it was evident that the drug, with its subtle intoxicating power, brought back to the fading sense some flash of a scene which may have been real, but which was rendered lurid, spectral, and terrifying by the action of the poison. Under this condition incoherent words of command would be uttered in rapid tones, full of an agony of eagerness and haste; and cries for help would be yelled forth in what seemed to be a maniacal frenzy. Many of the actual utterances that escaped these unconscious lips, and gave glimpses of a phantom war as seen through the vapor of chloroform, were too fragmentary to be remembered, but two at least were muttered with such an emphasis of horror that I took note of them.
One of the wounded from Spion Kop had evidently engraved upon his mind the hideous scene of slaughter which the trenches on that hill presented. As he was being anæsthetised it was apparent that in his dream he was back again in the trenches, and was once more among his dead and mangled comrades. The vision of one wounded man especially haunted him and fascinated him, and at last he screamed out: "There goes that bloke again whose leg was shot away; blimy, if he ain't crawling now!"
Another poor fellow had before his eye the spectre of an awful kopje. His fragmentary utterances made vivid the unearthly land he was traversing. All who stood by could picture the ghostly kopje, and could almost share in his anguish when he yelled: "There they are on the hill! For God's sake, shoot! Why don't we shoot?"
XXII
THE BODY-SNATCHERS
Early in the campaign Colonel Gallwey, the P.M.O., organised a volunteer ambulance corps. Two thousand bearers were wanted, and in a few days two thousand were enrolled. Their duties were to carry the wounded off the field, to transport serious cases from the advanced hospitals or dressing stations to the stationary field hospital, and thence, if need be, to the railway. There were to be twelve on a stretcher.
This corps contained examples of all sorts and conditions of men--labourers, mechanics, "gentlemen," dock loafers, seamen, dentists, a chemist or two, a lawyer or two, tram drivers, clerks, miners, and shop assistants. Many were refugees from the Transvaal, and the majority had been thrown out of work of some kind or another by the war. A chance of getting employment had, no doubt, induced many to enlist, while probably the greater number were attracted by a spirit of adventure, by a desire to get to the front and to see something of the pomp and circumstance of war.
They formed a strange company when they mustered at Pietermaritzburg--a section of a street crowd in their everyday clothes, or in such clothes as were selected for roughing it. There was immense variety in the matter of hats. Belts were a feature. The flannel shirt, which was practicallyde rigueur, was replaced in an instance or two by a jersey. Collars were not worn; neckties were optional. There was no fixed fashion in the matter of boots; they varied from canvas shoes, worthy of a dandy at the seaside, to top boots fit for a buccaneer.
As to the men themselves, they were of all ages, heights, shapes, and sizes--the men of a crowd. Some were sunburned, and some were pale. Some were indifferent, but most were eager. Some were disposed to assume a serious military bearing, while others appeared to regard the venture as a silly joke of which they were beginning to be a little ashamed.
There is no doubt that the corps was in appearance not impressive. They were wild and shabby looking, disordered, unsymmetrical, and bizarre. They were scoffed at; and acquired the not unkindly meant title of the "body-snatchers." Later on the exuberant invention of the soldier dignified them by the titles of the "catch-'em-alive-oh's" or the "pick-me-ups."
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. They showed the usual British indifference under fire, and went without hesitancy wherever they were led. Unfortunately it happened that many of the worthy "body-snatchers" were wounded, and not a few of them were killed.
In the early days of their career the "catch-'em-alive-oh's" fell upon bad times. They knew little of camp life, and less of the art of getting the most out of it. They had no organisation among themselves, and many were incompetent to shift alone. They began as a mob, and they tried to live as a mob, and the result was that about the time of Colenso they had little comfort but that which is said by the moralist to be derived from labour. In their camp after the battle they had time to settle down. They entered the camp a thriftless crowd, and came out of it a company of handy men.
They were popular with the soldiers. They had the gift of tongues of a kind, and could compete with most in the matter of lurid language. Their incessant hunger and indiscriminate thirst were a matter for admiration. They were good-hearted, and, although they looked wild, they meant well. Many a wounded man has been rocked to sleep on their stretchers, and on more than one dying ear the last sound that fell was the tramp of their untidy feet.
XXIII
SEEING THEM OFF
On the afternoon of Thursday, February 8th, the news came to the hospital at Spearman's that the army was once more to retire, and signs were already abroad to show that the retreat had commenced. At the same time an order arrived to the effect that all the wounded were to be moved at sunrise on the following day to Frere. Our stay at Spearman's--extended now to three weeks--had therefore come to an end.
Among those left in the hospital were 150 patients whose condition was more or less serious. They had been kept under care as long as possible in order to avoid or postpone the danger of the long journey to the base. It was determined that these 150 men should be carried down to Frere on stretchers and by hand. And this was done, and well done, by the much-ridiculed corps of "body-snatchers."
It was no light undertaking, for the distance was twenty-five miles, and the road was dusty and not of the best. Every step had to be tramped under a glaring sun, and the heat of that day was great. Allowing twelve men to a stretcher, 1,800 men would be required. This number was forthcoming at sunrise, and they accomplished the march in the day, reaching Frere at sundown. This was a splendid piece of work.
It is not hard to surmise what would have happened to many of those who were the most ill if their journey to Frere had been by the ox-wagon, or by the still less easy ambulance. As it was, the whole convoy went down with comfort, and only one man died on the way, and he had indeed just reached his journey's end when his life ebbed away.
Long before sunrise on the morning of the departure from Spearman's the hospital was astir; and while it was yet dark lights could be seen in most of the tents, and lanterns carried by orderlies or coolies were moving here and there among the grey lines. The two white lights which hung from the flag-pole in front of the hospital were still shining. By the time the shadows had vanished and the light of the dawn fell upon "No. 4," it was in a state of untidy turmoil. Everyone was on the alert to "see them off."
In the marquees the last dressings were being carried out by candle-light. Clothes were being got together; helpless men were being dressed; blankets were being rolled up, and such comforts as the hospital could provide were being packed for the wounded to take with them on their journey. Cherished possessions were being dragged out from under pillows, to be safely disposed in a haversack or a boot. The grey light fell upon orderlies in their shirt sleeves bustling from tent to tent; upon piles of provision cases and of forage which were being turned out; upon heaps of stretchers; upon the rolled-up kit of the Army Medical Corps men; upon melancholy coolies who had been up all night, and were still crawling about, and were still in their night attire. This night outfit would consist, probably, of a turban, a mealie sack round the neck, and a decayed army mackintosh on the body; or of a turban, a frock-coat, which might at one time have graced Bond Street, and bare legs. Here and there in the indistinct light would be seen the white apron and trim dress of a nurse, who still carried the lantern she had had with her since the small hours of the morning. All were anxious to be up in time to "see them off."
In due course, and even yet before the sun could be seen, the Volunteer Ambulance Corps began to form up outside the camp. They were nearly two thousand strong, and they were a wild-looking company. There was, however, more uniformity in their clothing now, because they had been supplied with khaki tunics, and with occasional khaki trousers. Some wore putties, some gaiters, and some had tucked their trousers inside their socks. A few had cut their trousers off about the knee and were distinguished by bare legs. A gaiter on one leg and a puttie on the other was not considered to be in any waydémodé. Their hats were still very varied, but many had possessed themselves of helmets which had been picked up on the field. Uniformity and smartness could, however, not be expected if one man wore a helmet and the next a tam-o'-shanter, the third a bowler hat, and the fourth a "squasher" or a headpiece of his own designing. They had red-cross brassards on their left arms, but these had become merely fluttering bits of colouring.
This weird corps carried their possessions with them, and it was evident that in transporting their impedimenta they had appreciated the value of the division of labour. Many had military water-bottles, which they had probably picked up. Others carried their water in glass bottles, which dangled from their waists. Hanging about their bodies by strings or straps would be various useful domestic articles. Attached to one man would be a bundle of firewood, to another a saucepan, to a third a kettle and a lantern. Here a man would have in the place of a sabre-tache a biscuit tin suspended by a cord, or a hatchet and a tin-opener, or a spare pair of boots, which swung bravely as he marched. A popularvade mecumwas an empty jam tin (much blackened by the smoke of the camp fire) with a wire handle, and evidence that it represented a cooking-pot. Belts, knives, sticks, overcoats, rolled-up mackintoshes, and a general tint of sunburn and dirt completed the uniform of this strange company.
Before they entered the camp the wounded had been brought out on stretchers. 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. Those on the stretchers presented bandaged legs and bandaged arms, splints of all kinds, covered-up eyes and bound-up heads, and the general paraphernalia of an accident ward. Some of the faces were very pinched and pale, for pain and loss of blood and exhaustion had caused the sunburn to fade away.
The light of the dawn fell upon this woe-begone line, and dazzled the eyes of many with the unaccustomed glare. Those who were not too ill were in excellent spirits, for this was the first step on the journey homewards. Such were excited, garrulous and jocular, and busy with pipes and tobacco. A few were already weary, and had on their lips the oft-repeated expression that "they were fed up with the war." Many a head was lifted out of the hood to see if any old chum could be recognised along the line, and from those would come such exclamations as: "Why are you here, Tom?" "Where have you been hit?" "Ain't this a real beanfeast?" "Thought you were stiff." "We're on the blooming move at last."
Many of the men on the stretchers were delirious, and some were almost unmanageable. One poor fellow was babbling about the harvest and the time they were having. He was evidently in his dream once more among the cornfields of England, and among plenteous beer. Another shook the canvas hood of his stretcher and declared with vehemence that he "would not go in any bally sailing boat, he was going in a steamer, and the colonel would never let his men go in a rotten sailing ship." Whereupon he affirmed that "he was going to chuck it," and proceeded to effect his purpose by rolling off his stretcher.
When the Volunteer Ambulance Corps marched along the line of stretchers they were the subject of much chaff, and many comments such as these burst forth: "You're being paraded before the General. So buck up!" "Pull up yer socks." "You with the kettle! Do you take yourself for a gipsy van?" "We ain't buying no hardware to-day--go home." "You know there's a Government handicap on this job, and half a crown to the man who gets in first, so you had better hurry my stretcher along." And so on; in the dialect of London, of Dublin, of Lancashire, and of Devon, with infinite variety and with apparent good spirits.
There were many anxious cases among this crowd on the stretchers. One, for example, was an Irishman named Kelly, a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was as plucky a soldier as the plucky soil of Ireland has ever produced. His right arm had been smashed on Spion Kop. He had been on the hill two nights; and when the darkness fell had spent his time in crawling about on the ground, holding the sleeve of his shattered arm between his teeth, dragging his rifle with his left hand, and searching the bodies of the dead for any water that may have been left in their water-bottles. He had lost an incredible amount of blood, and when he reached the hospital it was necessary to amputate the whole upper limb, including the shoulder-blade and the collar-bone. He went through this ordeal with infinite courage and with irrepressible good humour. He had been the strong man of his regiment and a great boxer, and, as he casually said, "He should miss his arm."
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. When his eyes fell upon the delectable vision of English beer he could stand no more, and Kelly wept.
I little thought when I saw Kelly off at Spearman's that the next time I should say good-bye to him would be in a hansom cab in Pall Mall; but so it was.
When all was ready the stretchers were lifted off the ground in order, and the bearers filed out of the camp and on to the dusty track. The morning was like that of a summer's day in England, and we watched the long convoy creep along the road until it was nearly out of sight. The perfect quiet of their departure was only broken by the oft-repeated boom of the naval gun on the hill.
XXIV
A FUNERAL AT SPEARMAN'S
There were many deaths at Spearman's, and the burying ground was under the shadow of the clump of trees which stood at the back of Spearman's Farm, and of which burying place I have already spoken. Those who died were carried away to the mortuary-tent, and there each body was sewn up by the coolies in the brown army blanket or in a sheet. The sewing was after the manner of the sewing up of a package. The brown blanket, however, formed but a poor covering at the last, and it made little mystery of what it shrouded. Beneath its tightly drawn folds there was shadowed something that was still a man, for was there not the clear outline of head and chin and shoulders and feet? When the body was ready it was brought out of the tent, placed upon a stretcher, and carried to the grave. Over the bodies of the officers was thrown the Union Jack, but the bodies of the soldiers were covered only by the brown blanket or the sheet.
There was one funeral which I have in mind, on the occasion of which eight were buried--eight who had been struck down on Spion Kop--four non-commissioned officers and four men.
The funeral party drew up near to the mortuary-tent, and halted there in precise military formation. There was the firing party, who went first, with inverted rifles; then came the bearers, and then a small company from the regiments of the dead.
Some little way off stood a cluster of men who had come, in a shy, apologetic sort of way, to see the last of their pals. They seemed to think that their presence near by the formal procession was an intrusion, and they huddled together, some ten of them, at a distance. From their attitudes one inferred that they did not wish to be considered as taking part in the funeral. They were pretending to be merely onlookers. They were restless, and disposed to shuffle their feet, or they kicked the earth up absently with the toes of their boots.
Some of the ten kept their eyes fixed upon the mortuary-tent, to watch the bodies come out. As each of the blanket-covered objects was brought from the tent into the sunlight there were murmured comments from this small knot of untidy men--these men who did not want to look like mourners, but who were mourners indeed. "That's surely Ginger," says one of the number, pointing to the body last brought out. "No, that ain't Ginger," says his companion. "Ginger never had a chest on him like that. That's more like Jimmy Evans. Jimmy held hisself like that often."
So they talked, and they kept up fairly well this pretence at a casual conversation. But some could not trust themselves to speak, and these kept their backs to the tent and kicked at the earth absently. Those who took part in the apparent nonchalant talk had a struggle, I think, to keep their voices from breaking and their eyes from becoming dim. The "things" they were bringing out of the tent, done up in blankets, had once been men who had, perhaps, enlisted with them, who probably hailed from the same town in the Old Country, and who were the subjects of many memories.
When all the bodies were ready and the stretchers in line, the procession started, and marched slowly and silently round the kopje and along the glade that led to the trees by Spearman's Farm.
But for the tents of a far-off camp the veldt was a desert. There was scarcely a human being in sight. There was none of the pomp of a soldier's burial; no funeral march; no awed crowd; no tolling of bells; no group of weeping women in black clothes; no coffin borne on a gun-carriage and distinguished by the helmet and accoutrements of the dead. There were only the eight bundles in the brown blankets on the eight stretchers. And some little way in the rear were the slouching company of the ten, who did not want to be regarded as mourners, and who, with occasional "sniffing," and perhaps a surreptitious wiping of eyes with a shirt cuff, were shuffling along with a poor affectation of indifference.
In due course the last resting-place is reached, and here are eight separate graves in a line, and at the head of them stands the chaplain. He has on a college cap, a white surplice, riding breeches and putties. He reads the service with the utmost impressiveness. The men who form the firing party and the escort are ranged round the place of burial in precise military lines, and, in spite of the blazing sun, every head is bared. 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. Their pretence at indifference and at having been drawn to the funeral by mere curiosity is now of the very slenderest.
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.
XXV
ABSENT-MINDEDNESS
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.
Among the wounded were always those whose first anxiety was as to the effect the news of their injuries would have upon mothers, sweethearts, or wives. And many a message of consolation was confided to the sympathising ears of the Sisters, and many a letter of assurance was laboriously written by those who had the strength to write.
In the matter of letters the soldier takes profound interest. He writes whenever he has the chance, and makes a great deal of fuss about the performance. To most of those in camp the posting of a letter home is an event, and so precious is the pencilled epistle that the writer will hesitate before he commits it to the casual sack which is tied up to the fly of the post office tent, and which appears scarcely formal or official enough to receive the dirt-stained dispatch. For such dispatches, nothing less pretentious than a post office building or an iron letter-box seem fitting.
Many a time have I seen a letter dropped into the sack with such an expression of insecurity, and such evident feeling of hopelessness as to its safe conduct, that the writer of the same has appeared to regret that he had parted with it. A post office official in his shirt sleeves, with a pipe in his mouth and a helmet on the back of his head, seems hardly to be responsible enough for the occasion; and if the letter-writer would venture to express a hope that his elaborately directed letter "would be all right," the post office deity is apt to regard this concern with flippancy. "There's the sack! Chuck the blooming thing in. It won't break," was about all the comfort he would get.
The receipt of letters from home also was attended with an eagerness which was hardly fitting in an absent-minded man. The sergeant with the bundle of letters would read out the names on the envelopes in a military voice, ferociously and without feeling, and each man who got a missive grabbed it and marched off with it with the alacrity of a dog who has got a bone. If he could find the shelter of a wagon where the letter could be read unobserved it was well.
The letters dictated to the Sisters in the hospital were apt to be a little formal. It seemed to be thought proper that expression should be curbed, and that the sensibilities of the Sister should be in no way shocked by the revelation of a love passage. One dying man, who was dictating a letter to his mother, thought he would like to send with it a last message to "his girl," and in answer to the Sister's inquiry as to what she should write, modestly said, "Give her my kind regards."
There need have been no precise decorum in the wording of these last hopeless utterances, for if the sender of the letter "sniffed" a little as he dictated the message, the Sisters cried over them.
When a wounded man came to be stripped it was common to find some precious keepsake or some secret package hung about his neck, and to which he clung with the earnestness of a worshipper to his fetish. One man particularly was much more anxious about a locket that hung on his hairy chest than he was about his wound. He seemed to think that so long as the cheap little trinket was not lost his life mattered little. In the operation tent he was reluctant to take chloroform until a solemn promise had been given that no harm should befall his locket, and that it should not be removed from his neck, I am afraid that the history of the locket ends here, for the loyal man died.
Among the wounded brought in one day from Potgieter's Drift was a man of scanty clothing, who held something in his closed hand. He had kept this treasure in his hand for some eight hours. He showed it to the Sister. It was a ring. In explanation he said, "My girl gave me this ring, and when I was hit I made up my mind that the Boers should never get it, so I have kept it in my fist, ready to swallow it if I was taken before our stretchers could reach me."
XXVI
AT CHIEVELEY AGAIN
On Sunday, February 11th, No. 4 Field Hospital once more reached Chieveley, after the tedious march from Spearman's of which mention has been made. The hospital was pitched near the station, and not far from the spot it had occupied on the day of the battle of Colenso. Chieveley is represented only by a railway station and a station-master's house. There are, however, many eucalyptus trees about these buildings, and the spot is shady. The ground stands high, and miles of undulating country are open to view. There are a Kaffir kraal or two in sight, and many mimosa groves, and beyond them all the line of the river. Chieveley, therefore, as a camp was well esteemed.
The sojourn at Chieveley began with that terrible fourteen days of incessant fighting which ended in the taking of Pieters and the relief of Ladysmith. Every day at sunrise the guns began, and it was not until sunset that they ceased. Any who looked up from their work in the camp, and turned their eyes towards Umbulwana, would seldom fail to see the flash of a lyddite shell on the far-off ridges, or, clear against the blue sky, the white puff of cloud from a shrapnel. Every day the wounded came in, mostly towards evening. Fortunately their numbers were few.
The days had again become very hot and very trying. It was weather which the soldier is apt to describe, in the vivid language of his kind, as weather "when a man should have his body in a pool and his head in a public-house!"
Standing in the station at Chieveley was commonly to be seen the armoured train. Whatever iron plates could do to make a structure indestructible had been done; but to such beauty as a railway train may possess nothing had thereby been added. The sailors had, however, been busy with the engine of the train. The engineers had given it the outline of a square gasometer, but the "handy man" had covered the disfigured machine with ropes as with a garment. From the top of the funnel a veil of closely placed ropes trailed to the ground. A like panoply of ropes covered the body of the engine, and its wheels, and its cylinders, and its every detail. The officers called this production the "Russian poodle," but the soldiers gave it the name of "Hairy Mary"; and this name clung to it.
During the movement to Spearman's, Chieveley had been carefully fortified. A space round the station had been marked off by a very deep wire entanglement. Trenches had been dug, and some sort of a fort thrown up. There were entrenchments about the stationmaster's mild little house, and before the windows were erected iron plates with loopholes such as were used on the trucks of the armoured train. Similar iron plates formed a barricade along the modest veranda, and the result of it all was that the small unobtrusive house was made to look fierce and truculent. The few bare rooms were used by the Headquarters Staff, and the rough tables and stools were littered with all sorts of war-like paraphernalia. Among these insignia of battle, murder, and sudden death were two strange objects which had been left behind by the looting Boers, and which seemed out of place. One was a stuffed jay, and the other a dressmaker's lay-figure or "bust." The bird was stuck upon the wreck of the mantelpiece, and stared amiably and foolishly from its perch. The "bust" was life-size, and suggested the torso of a black woman, with a little polished knob for a head. It may have at one time graced the salon of a Parisian dressmaker. It was, however, now no longer used to show off dresses, trimmings and flounces, for a helmet surmounted the graceful chest, and belts, carrying pistols and swords, hung from the fine shoulders or clung to the delicate waist.