Above the hubbub of the swarming hospitals was still to be heard the boom of the accursed guns.
In the rear the whistle and puff of a train at Chieveley sounded curiously out of place, and about the outskirts of the hospital some outspanned oxen were grazing as unconcernedly as if they were wandering in a meadow in England. Over all was the blazing sun and the blinding sky.
Late in the afternoon a thunderstorm passed overhead, and when the rain came down the wounded, who were lying on the grass, were covered over with the waterproof ground-sheets which were used in the tents. This did little to mitigate the grimness of the occasion. There was, indeed, something very uncanny in the covered-up figures, in the array of tarpaulins glistening with rain, and beneath which some of the wounded lay motionless, while others moved uneasily.
No pen, however, can fitly describe this scene at the foot of the ridge. Here was a picture of the horrors of war, and however accustomed an onlooker may have been to the scenes among which a surgeon moves, few could have wished other than that the circumstances of this day would be blotted out of all memory. I could not fail to be reminded over and over again of the remark made by many who were leaving England when I left to the effect that they hoped they would reach the Cape "in time for the fun." Well, we were in time, but if this was "fun" it was humour of a kind too ghastly for contemplation.
If of this dismal scene there was much to be forgotten, there was at least one feature which can never be forgot, and that was the heroism with which the soldier met his "ill luck." The best and the worst of a man, so far as courage and unselfishness are concerned, come out when he is hard hit, and without doubt each one of the wounded at Colenso "took his licking like a man." Bravery in the heat and tumult of battle is grand enough, but here in the dip behind the gun hill, and within the unromantic lines of a field hospital, was a display of grim pluck, which showed itself only in tightened faces, clenched teeth, and firmly knit fingers. Among the stricken crowd who had reached the shelter of the hospital there was many a groan, but never a word of complaint, never a sign of whining, nor a token of fear. Some were a little disposed to curse, and a few to be jocular, but they all faced what had to be like men.
They were not only uncomplaining and unselfish, but grateful and reasonable. There was no grumbling (no "grousing," as Tommy calls it), no carping criticism. As one man said, pointing to the over-worked surgeons in the operation-tent, "They will do the best they can for the blooming lot of us, and that's good enough for me."
VI
INSIDE AN OPERATION-TENT
There were four operation-marquees pitched under the naval ridge on the day of Colenso, one connected with each of the field hospitals. There is little about these marquees or about the work done in the shadow of them that is of other than professional interest. They were crowded, and overcrowded, on December 15th, and the surgeons who worked in them worked until they were almost too tired to stand. Every preparation had been completed hours before the first wounded man arrived, and the equipment of each hospital was ample and excellent. To my thinking, a great surgical emergency, great beyond any expectation, was never more ably met than was this on the day of the first battle.
The marquee is small. It accommodates the operation-table in the centre between the two poles, while along the sides are ranged the field panniers which serve as tables for instruments and dressings.