ded, so I went off
with a couple of buckets to replenish our water supply. Wounded men are
generally troubled with thirst, and the washing of their hands and faces
always refreshes them greatly. I found the station tap, however,
guarded by a sentry; no water was to be drawn for the use of the
troops, as the pipes--so it was said--came from Modder River, which was
contaminated by the Boer corpses.

We were soon busy with the wounded Highlanders and well within an hour
we had safely placed some 120 men in our bunks, and some on the floor. I
am afraid the poor soldiers often suffered agony when they were lifted
in or rolled from the stretchers on to the bunks. It was sometimes
impossible to avoid hurting a man with, say, a shattered thigh-bone and
a broken arm in thus changing his position. We however did our best and
lifted them with the utmost care and gentleness, but they often, poor
fellows, groaned and cried out in their cruel pain.

At 6 P.M. we saw the funeral of sixty-three Highlanders--all buried in
one long trench close to the line. No shots were fired over the vast
grave, but tears rolled down many a bronzed cheek and the bagpipes
played a wild lament. Surely there is no music like this for the burial
of young and gallant men. The notes seem to express an almost frenzied
access of human sorrow!

Soon after this my old Sudan acquaintance, Frederick Villiers, passed
through the train. He did not recognise me in my uniform and I did not
make myself known to him as he was with an officer and I was only an
orderly. I wonder if he remembers that dreadful night, 31st August,
1898, when we lay side by side in the desert at Sururab, soaked to the
skin from a tropical downpour, and, to make his misery complete, he was
stung in the neck by a large scorpion.

We ran down to Orange River with our first load of wounded men, and just
as we were crossing the sappers' pontoon bridge over the Modder a trolly
or small waggon broke loose and rushing down the incline in front met
our engine and was broken into matchwood. Most of our cases on this
first run were "severe" or "dangerous". Some of the men had no less than
three bullet wounds, and several were still living whose heads had been
pierced by bullets. During a former journey, after Belmont, poor ---- of
the Guards lived for several days with a bullet through his brain; he
was apparently unconscious or semi-conscious and struggled so
desperately to remove the bandages from