non-combatant, who has none of
the excitement bred of actual fighting to sustain him, it requires a
high decree of courage to kneel or stoop when every one else is lying
down, and in this exposed position first to find the tiny bullet
puncture, and then bandage the wound satisfactorily. Many and many a
life has been saved by this conduct on the part of our medical staff,
for if an important artery is severed by a bullet or shell-splinter a
man may easily bleed to death in ten minutes. I have myself on one
occasion in Crete seen jets of blood escaping from the femoral artery of
a Turkish soldier, without being able to render him any assistance. In
short, it is believed that quite three-fifths of those who perish on a
battle-field die from loss of blood. In some cases a soldier may, by
digital pressure or by improvising a rough tourniquet, check the flow of
blood from a wound, but the nervous prostration which accompanies a
wound inflicted by a bullet travelling nearly 2,000 feet a second is so
great, that most men seriously wounded are physically incapable of
rendering such assistance to themselves, even if they understand the
elementary amount of anatomy requisite for the treatment.

At the same time it is only fair to point out that stretcher-bearers who
advance during an engagement and render this gallant assistance to the
wounded do so entirely at their own risk and must take their chance of
getting hit. Complaints have been from time to time made, by persons who
did not know the circumstances, that our stretcher-bearers have been
shot by the Boers. If this took place during an action no blame can
fairly attach to the enemy, for in repelling an attack they cannot of
course be expected to cease fire because stretcher-bearers show
themselves in front. The hail of bullets comes whistling along--ispt,
ispt, ispt--and everywhere little jets of sand are spurting up. Can we
wonder if now and then a stretcher-bearer is struck down? To put the
case frankly--he is doing a brave work, but he has no business to be
where he is. It is easy to see why the usages of war do not permit the
presence of ambulance men in the firing line. Quite apart from the
serious losses incurred by so valuable a corps, advantage might be taken
by an unscrupulous enemy to bring up ammunition under cover of the Red
Cross.

It is no easy task in the dark or in a fading light to find the
khaki-clad figures lying prone upon the brown sand. But when the wo