enough. There was a great crowd on the platform and everyone was very
nice and gave us a splendid send-off. I was too busy all the time to
feel at all depressed at leaving Luly and Purefoy, which I had rather
feared I should. Partings are, I think, much more trying in the
prospect than at the actual moment, because beforehand the parting
fills one's imagination, whereas at the moment one's hopes of meeting
again come into active play. Anyway, I hadn't time to think much about
it then, and I was already very sleepy. We started at 12.5.

At 1.30 Sergt. Pragnell came running along to say that L/C. Burgess was
taken very bad; so I went along, with the Eurasian Assistant-Surgeon,
who was travelling with us to Bombay. (These Eurasian A.-S.'s are far
more competent than the British R.A.M.C. officers, in my experience.) We
found Burgess with all the symptoms of heat-stroke, delirium and red
face and hot dry skin. A thermometer under his armpit, after half a
minute, showed a temperature of 106°. So the A.S. had all his clothes
removed and laid him on a bench in the draught and dabbled him gently
with water all over from the water-bottles. Apparently in these cases
there are two dangers, either of which proves fatal if not counteracted:
(1) the excessive temperature of the body. This rises very rapidly. In
another half an hour it would have been 109°, and 110° is generally
fatal. This he reduced, by the sponging and evaporation, to about 100°
in the course of an hour. But the delirium continued, because (2) the
original irritation sends a rush of blood to the head, causing acute
congestion, which if it continues produces apoplexy. To prevent this we
wanted ice, and I had wired on to Gwalior for some, but that was three
hours ahead. Luckily at about 3 we halted to let the mail pass, and a
railway official suggested stopping it. This we did, I got some ice
which soon relieved the situation. But of course we couldn't take poor
Burgess with us, so we wired for an ambulance to meet us at Jhansi, and