throw a veil.
Sufficient that they were necessary horrors--that they could not be
prevented. But only the doctors and the chaplains know what our men
passed through in Intombi camp. But no one complained--that was the
wonder of it. 'Oh! sir, when do you think Buller will get through?' was
the nearest to complaint ever heard. They suffered and they died, but
they murmured not.

='The Way He was Absent-minded was that He Forgot Himself!'=

Listen to what Mr. Hordern has to say about it:--

'Every morning they had the awful procession of dead carried down
to the cemetery, each man sewn up in his own blanket, and
reverently buried, each man having done his duty and laid down his
life for his Queen and country. And the brave old Tommy Atkins was
called "an absent-minded beggar," a fine title itself, though it
referred to him in the wrong way. He was not absent-minded, for he
had a warm corner in his heart for those at home. The way he was
absent-minded, was that _he forgot himself_. I knew one man who had
two or three letters from home, which he carried about in his
pocket, and although he longed to read them again, he dare not do
so because, he said, he should break down if he did. The boys
never forgot their homes. There was one dead soldier, a poor lad of
the Irish Fusiliers, who was shot through the body, and afterwards
in searching his clothes they found a letter ready written and
addressed to his mother. He hadn't a chance of posting it. _He_ was
not an absent-minded beggar. _He_ didn't forget to write to his
mother. When they pulled his letter from his pocket, it was
impossible to post it, as it was covered with his blood. I
re-addressed it and sent it off to the dead soldier's mother.'

There was another story which showed the forgetfulness of the soldier
for himself. That happened in the relieving column. An officer was badly
wounded. It was dusk, and our troops had to retire down the kopje under
cover, though next day they took it. When they retired that night, the
wounded officer could not be moved, and so four men refused to leave
him. They remained with him all night without food or water, in order to
protect him from the bullets which were flying about--one lying at his
head, one at his feet, and one on either side. Those were absent-minded
beggars--_absent-minded for themselves_!

Mr. Hordern was talking to a