consists of a civilian doctor from a London hospital attached to the
South African Field Force, two Red Cross nurses from England, a staff
sergeant, two corporals, a couple of cooks and ten "orderlies" in charge
of the five wards.

Introductions to my comrades followed. We were certainly one of the
oddest collection of human beings I have ever come across. Our pursuits
when not in active service were extremely varied--one of our number was
an accountant, another a chemist, a third brewed beer in Johannesburg, a
fourth was an ex-baker, and so on. We were, on the whole, a very
harmonious little society, and it was with real regret that I left my
comrades when I returned to England. At least four of our number were
refugees from Johannesburg, and very anxious to return. These
unfortunates retailed at intervals doleful news about well-furnished
houses being rifled, Boer children smashing up porcelain ornaments and
playfully cutting out the figures from costly paintings with a pair of
scissors, and grand pianos being annexed to adorn the cottages of Kaffir
labourers. Another member of our little society had a very fair voice
and good knowledge of music, for in the days of his boyhood he had sung
in the choir of a Welsh cathedral; since that time he had practised as a
medical man and driven a tramcar. The weather was very trying sometimes
and J----, our Welsh singer, had acquired an almost supernatural skill
in leaping from the train when it stopped for a couple of minutes,
securing a bottle of Bass and then boarding the guard's van when the
train was moving off. On one of these successful forays I saw J---- send
three respectable people sprawling on their backs as he violently
collided with them in his desperate efforts to overtake the receding
train. The victims slowly got up and some nasty remarks about J---- were
wafted to us over the veldt. We had a couple of cooks. One of them was
an American who had served in the Cuban war, the other a big Irishman