Among the many officers of the R.A.M.C. I must confess that my strongest
sympathies are with those who are in charge of the little field
hospitals. These handy hospitals have their own transport, and move
with the various brigades or divisions. The officers who command them
have little comfort, little rest, the least luxurious mess, and the
hardest of work. They bear the brunt of the campaign so far as the
medical and surgical needs of the Army are concerned. They must be
always ready, always at hand, prepared to be full of patients one day
and empty the next; and those whose lives are spent with them can
certainly claim that they have "no abiding city."
The officers in charge of these hospitals are picked men, but as sound
experience is necessary they are often men who are no longer young, and
who may claim that they have already had their share of roughing it.
They are, perhaps, more than any others, the most exposed to criticism.
If anything goes wrong at the front a large proportion of the blame
falls upon them, and if all goes well their names appear in no roll of
honour.
No surgeon who saw these men could be other than proud that he belonged
to the same profession as they did. Of their work at Colenso, at
Spearman's Farm, and before Pieters I can only say that it was, to my
thinking, a credit to the medical department of any army.