Beneath a
verandah a dozen wounded officers, profusely swathed in bandages,
clustered in a silent brooding group. Nurses waited quietly by shut
doors that none might disturb more serious cases. Doctors hurried with
solemn faces from one building to another. Here and there men pushed
stretchers on rubber-tyred wheels about the paths, stretchers on which
motionless forms lay shrouded in blankets. One, concerning whom I asked,
had just had part of his skull trepanned: another had suffered
amputation. And all this pruning and patching up of broken men to win
them a few more years of crippled life caught one's throat like the
penetrating smell of the iodoform. Nor was I sorry to hasten away by the
night mail northwards to the camps. It was still dark as we passed
Estcourt, but morning had broken when the train reached Frere, and I
got out and walked along the line inquiring for my tent, and found it
pitched by the side of the very same cutting down which I had fled for
my life from the Boer marksmen, and only fifty yards from the spot on
which I had surrendered myself prisoner. So after much trouble and
adventure I came safely home again to the wars. Six weeks had passed
since the armoured train had been destroyed. Many changes had taken
place. The hills which I had last seen black with the figures of the
Boer riflemen were crowned with British pickets. The valley in which we
had lain exposed to their artillery fire was crowded with the white
tents of a numerous army. In the hollows and on the middle slopes canvas
villages gleamed like patches of snowdrops. The iron bridge across the
Blue Krantz River lay in a tangle of crimson-painted wreckage across the
bottom of the ravine, and the railway ran over an unpretentious but
substantial wooden structure. All along the line near the station fresh
sidings had been built, and many trains concerned in the business of
supply occupied them. When I had last looked on the landscape it meant
fierce and overpowering danger, with the enemy on all sides. Now I was
in the midst of a friendly host. But though much was altered some things
remained the same. The Boers still held Colenso. Their forces still
occupied the free soil of Natal. It was true that thousands of troops
had arrived to make all efforts to change the situation. It was true
that the British Army had even advanced ten miles. But Ladysmith was
still locked in the strong grip of the invader, and as I listened I
heard the distant