Out on our central rock again, we get reports from various detached attacking parties, showing that at at every point the rebels are being cleared or killed in their dens; but plenty of individuals of them still are left, and of this we have practical demonstration in the frequent visitation of bullets and other missiles, and some of them do their shooting pretty accurately, the Maxim attracting the aim of many a marksman among them. One of these marksmen we have nicknamed “Old Pot–legs,” from the nature of the missile (the iron legs of Kaffir cooking–pots) with which he treats us at intervals of ten minutes or so. Another on the other side we have christened “Rinderpest,” because he is a plague to us with his Lee–Metford rifle.
Meantime, several of our men have got hit, and have been brought in to our central rock, some of them brought out at considerable risk, too, by their officers and other men. But there are no stretchers to put them on, our bearer corps of friendly natives, who had been detailed to accompany the force, having entirely disappeared during the advance. (We afterwards found that they had dropped the stretchers in the Tuli River, and had dispersed themselves into the safest hiding–places they could find.) Nor was our surgeon here at first, Surgeon–Captain Lunan, for wherever firing was the hottest, there he went—to try and make it hotter. So in the meantime we did the best amateur work we could on the wounded men brought in. Of these there were six, all badly wounded, in addition to two more killed; and it is a pathetic comedy to watch the burly Royal Artillery sergeant transforming himself into a nurse for the occasion with a rough good–heartedness that does not stop to consider whether his patients are black or white.
Amateur Doctoring
We had two killed and six wounded. Our doctor was away in another part of the field, and our native stretcher–bearers had thrown away the stretchers and had bolted. So we established our “hospital” under the lee of a rock, and did what we could with “First Aid” dressings.