An officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps and a babu of the Indian Subordinate Medical Service were bending over a medical pannier. Stretcher-bearers brought in another burden as he turned his head to look round. It was a Native Officer. On top of his head was an oblong of bare-shaven skull—some caste-mark apparently. Following them with his eyes Bertram saw the stretcher-bearers place the unconscious (or dead) man at the end of a small row of similar still forms. . . . There was Brannigan. . . . There was a man with whom he had shared a tent for a night at Taveta. . . . What was his name? . . . There were the two Baluchi subalterns. . . . Was that the dead row—the mortuary, so to speak, of this little field ambulance? Was he to join it?
The place stunk of blood, iodine and horrors. He could move neither hand nor foot, and the world seemed to be a Mountain of Pain upon the peak of which he was impaled. . . .
The continued rattle of firing was coming nearer, surely? It was—much nearer. The stretcher-bearers brought in another casualty, the stretcher dripping blood. No “walking wounded” appeared to come to this particular dressing-station.
The firing was getting quite close, and the sound of the cracking of branches was audible. Leaves and twigs, cut from the trees by the bullets, occasionally fell upon the mangled and broken forms as though to hide them. . . .
“Sah—they are coming!” said the babu suddenly. His face was a mask of fear, but he continued to perform his duties as dresser, as well as his shaking hands would permit.
Suddenly a ragged line of Gurkhas broke into the clearing, halting to fire, retreating and firing again, fighting from tree to tree and bush to bush. . . . The mixed, swaying and changing battle-line was going to cross the spot where the wounded lay. . . . Those of them who were conscious knew what that meant. . .
So did the medical officer, and he shouted to the stretcher-bearers, babu, mule-drivers, porters, everybody, to carry the wounded farther into the bush—quick—quick. . . .
As his stretcher was snatched up, Bertram—so sick with pain, and the cruel extra agony of the jolts and jars, that he cared not what befell him—saw a group of askaris burst into the clearing, glare around, and rush forward with bayonets poised. He shut his eyes as they reached the other stretchers. . . .
§2
On the terrible journey down the Tanga Railway to M’buyuni, between Taveta and Voi, Bertram kept himself alive with the thought that he would eventually reach Mombasa. . . .