there! Is there no stretcher?" There was not one stretcher within
voice-shot.

Already the men were bringing down the first of their wounded. Slung in
a blanket came a captain, his wet hair matted over his forehead, brow
and teeth set, lips twitching as they put him down, gripping his whole
soul to keep it from crying out. He turned with the beginning of a smile
that would not finish: "Would you mind straightening out my arm?" The
arm was bandaged above the elbow, and the forearm was hooked under him.
A man bent over--and suddenly it was dark. "Here, bring back that
lantern!" But the lantern was staggering up-hill again to fetch the
next. "Oh, do straighten out my arm," wailed the voice from the ground.
"And cover me up. I'm perishing with cold." "Here's matches!" "And 'ere;
I've got a bit of candle." "Where?" "Oh, do straighten out my arm!"
"'Ere, 'old out your 'and." "Got it," and the light flickered up again
round the broken figure, and the arm was laid straight. As the touch
came on to the clammy fingers it met something wet and red, and the
prone body quivered all over. "What," said the weak voice--the smile
struggled to come out again, but dropped back even sooner than
before--"have they got my finger too?" Then they covered up the body
with a blanket, wringing wet, and left it to soak and shiver. And that
was one out of more than two hundred.

For hours--and by now it was a month of nights--every man with hands and
legs toiled up and down, up and down, that ladder of pain. By Heaven's
grace the Boers had filled their waggons with the loot of many stores;
there were blankets to carry men in and mattresses whereon to lay them.
They came down with sprawling bearers, with jolts and groans, with "Oh,
put me down; I can't stand it! I'm done anyhow; let me die quiet." And
always would come back the cheery voice from doctor or officer or