A VOLUNTEER CASUALTY.
We were "standing easy" prior to the assault on the undefended heights of Spanker's Hill when the voice of the platoon-commander disturbed our thoughts of home and loved ones, and particularly of our Sunday dinners, which would be very much out of season before we could get at them.
"Number 4," he said, in a tone that thrilled us to the bottom twist of our puttees, "these Body-Snatchers (thus coarsely he alluded to the Ambulance Section) have been following us all day and haven't had a single casualty so far. That is why, in the coming advance, I shall be wounded. Sergeant, you will take over the command, should the worst befall. Smith and Williams, as you are both big and heavy, you'd better be knocked out too."
It was with mingled feelings that I heard my name mentioned. In the first place, a feeling of annoyance was engendered at having my proportions thus publicly referred to. But other, and I trust worthier, thoughts came to me, and, turning to my neighbour, I gave him a few last messages of a suitably moving nature to be delivered to my friends. The kind-hearted fellow was deeply affected, and in a voice broken by emotion offered to take charge of my loose change, and asked for my watch as a keepsake. I thanked him with tears in my eyes, but said that the burial party would forward all my valuables to my relations.
Our conversation was interrupted by the command "Platoon—'SHUN. To the left, to six paces, ex-TEND." By an oversight the preliminary formation usually adopted as a precaution against artillery had been omitted, and in a moment we were advancing up the hill in open order.
Scarcely had we started when our officer, the pride of the platoon, threw up his hands and fell. A moment later, chancing on a piece of tempting grass, I decided to lie down, and with a choking gurgle collapsed. As I lay on my back in an appropriate attitude (copied from the cinema) I wondered when the stretcher-party would appear, for the grass was damp and the April wind was chilly; but it was not long before a bright boy, rather over than under military age, ran up and, after a brief glance at me, began to signal with great vigour. He meant well, and out of consideration for his feelings I restrained a desire to tell him that he was creating a beastly draught. However, I asked him if he had any brandy, and, on receiving an answer in the negative, groaned deeply.
"Are you very bad?" he asked.
"No," I replied; "but if I lie here much longer I'll catch cold. Tell your people to hurry up."
When the stretcher-party arrived they decided that I had been shot in the chest, and, to get at the wound, began to remove my garments, till arrested by some virile language thrown off from the part affected. Then they began to carry me towards the gate of the park, despite the fact that the stretcher had been meant to hold someone about six inches shorter than I. Almost immediately the rear man, tripping on a root, fell on top of me, and the front man, being brought to a sudden stop, sat on my feet. When we had sorted ourselves out, and I had stopped talking, more from lack of breath than of matter, we resumed our journey.
After a matter of some three hundred yards the bearers began to feel tired, and, suddenly rolling me off the stretcher, they informed me that I was discharged as cured. Thus rapidly does a soldier of the Volunteers recover. It speaks volumes not only for their high state of physical condition but for the resilience of their moral.