Mine was a strange awakening to what appeared like a confused dream.
There was a terrible pain in my head, and a sensation as of something
warm and wet trickling down the side of my face, accompanied by a
peculiar smarting which made me involuntarily raise my hand and quickly
draw it away again, for I had only increased the pain. Then I lay quite
still, trying to puzzle out what was the matter.
At first I could only realise the fact that the darkness was intense.
After a time the idea occurred that I must have been out with my troop
attacking the Boers, and that a bullet had struck me diagonally on the
forehead and glanced off after making the cut, which kept bleeding; but
I was so stunned that a kind of veil seemed to be raised between the
present and the past.
"I shall think all about it soon," I mused. "It's of no use to worry
after a fall."
Then I wondered about Sandho, and how the poor beast had fared, a pang
of mental agony shooting through me as I listened.