HOSPITAL.
_August 29._--Suddenly told we were all to go to Pretoria by train,
railway being just open, it seems. I am disgusted with the slowness of
my foot, and at being separated from the Battery. It goes to-morrow
back to Pynaar's River, and then joins a flying column of some sort.
_August 30._--I write lying luxuriously on a real spring-mattress bed,
between real sheets, having just had my fill of real bread and real
butter, besides every comfort, in a large marquee tent, with a wooden
floor, belonging to the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital, Pretoria. I landed
in this haven at four o'clock this morning, after a nightmare of a
journey from Warm Baths. We left there about 2.30 P.M. yesterday,
after long delays, and then a sudden rush. Williams came over to say
good-bye, and the Captain, Lieutenant Bailey and Dr. Thorne; also
other fellows with letters, and four of our empty cartridges as
presents for officers of the Irish Hospital in Pretoria. We were put
into a truck already full of miscellaneous baggage, and wedged
ourselves into crannies. It was rather a lively scene, as the General
was going down by the same train, and also Baden-Powell on his way
home to England. The latter first had a farewell muster of his men,
and we heard their cheers. Then he came up to the officers' carriage
with the General. I had not seen him before, and was chiefly struck by
his walk, which had a sort of boyish devil-may-care swing in it, while
in dress he looked like an ordinary trooper, a homely-looking service
jersey showing below his tunic. As the train steamed out we passed his
troops, drawn up in three sides of a square facing inwards, in their
shirt-sleeves. They sent up cheer after cheer, waving their hats to
Baden-Powell standing on the gangway. Then the train glided past camps
and piles of stores, till the last little outpost with its wood fire
was past, and on into the lonely bush. It was dark soon, and I lay on
my back among sacks, rifles, kit-bags, etc., looking at the stars, and
wondering how long this new move would keep me from the front. We
stopped many times, and at Hamman's Kraal took aboard some companies
of infantry. At intervals down the line we passed little posts of a
few men, sentries moving up and down, and a figure or two poring over
a pot on a fire. About midnight, after a rather uneasy slumber, I woke
in Pretoria. Raining. With the patient, sheep-like passivity that the
private soldier learns, we dragged ourselves and our kit from place to
place according to successive orders. A friendly corporal carried my
kit-sack, and being very slow on my feet, we finally got lost, and
found ourselves sitting forlornly on our belongings in the middle of
an empty, silent square outside the station (just where we bivouacked
a fortnight ago). However, the corporal made a reconnaissance, while I
smoked philosophical cigarettes. He found the rest in a house near by,
and soon we were sitting on the floor of a room, in a dense crowd,
drinking hot milk, and in our right minds; sick or wounded men of many
regiments talking, sleeping, smoking, sighing, and all waiting
passively. A benevolent little Scotch officer, with a shrewd,
inscrutable face, and smoking endless cigarettes, moved quietly about,
counting us reflectively, as though we were a valuable flock of sheep.
We sat here till about 2.30 A.M., when several waggons drove up, into
which we crowded, among a jumble of kit and things. We drove about
three miles, and were turned out at last on a road-side, where
lanterns and some red-shawled phantoms were glimmering about. We sat
in rows for some time, while officers took our names, and sorted us
into medical and surgical classes. Then a friendly orderly shouldered
my kit and led me into this tent. Here I stripped off everything,
packed all my kit in a bundle, washed, put on a clean suit of pyjamas,
and at about 4 A.M. was lying in this delicious bed, dead-beat, but
blissfully comfortable. Oddly, I couldn't sleep, but lay in a dreamy
trance, smoking cigarettes, with a beatific red-caped vision hovering
about in the half light. Dawn and the morning stir came, with fat soft
slices of fresh bread and butter and tea. I have been reading and
writing all day with every comfort. The utter relaxation of mind and
limb is a strange sensation, after roughing it on the veldt and being
tied eternally to two horses.
There are twelve beds in this tent, and many regiments are represented
among the patients; there is an Imperial Light Horse man, who has been
in most of the big fights, a mercurial Argyll and Sutherland
Highlander, with a witty and voluble tongue; men of the Wilts, Berks,
and Yorks regiments, and in the next bed a trooper of the 18th
Hussars, who was captured at Talana Hill in the first fight of the
war, had spent seven months at Waterval in the barbed-wire cage which
we saw, and two since at the front. It was under his bed that the
escape-tunnel was started. He gave me an enthusiastic account of the
one "crowded hour of glorious life" his squadron had had before they
were captured. They got fairly home with the steel among a party of
Boers in the hills at the back of Dundee, and had a grand time; but
soon after found themselves surrounded, and after a desperate fight
against heavy odds the survivors had to surrender.
_September 2._--Getting very hot. Foot slow. The reaction has run its
course, and I am getting bored.
_September 4._--_Monday._--In the evening got a cable from "London,"
apparently meant for Henry (my brother), saying "How are you?" and
addressed to "Hospital, Pretoria." Is he really here, sick or wounded?
Or is it a mistake for me, my name having been seen in a newspaper and
mistaken for his? I have heard nothing from him lately, but gather
that his corps, Strathcona's Horse, is having a good deal to do in the
pursuit of Botha, Belfast way.
_September 5._--Got the mounted orderly to try and find out about
Henry from the other hospitals (there are many here), but, after
saying he would, he has never turned up and can't be found. There are
moments when one is exasperated by one's helplessness as a private
soldier, dependent on the good-nature of an orderly for a thing like
this.
_September 6._--_Wednesday._--A man came in yesterday who had been a
prisoner of De Wet for seven weeks, having been released at Warm Baths
the day I left. He said De Wet had left that force a week before,
taking three hundred men, and had gone south for his latest raid. He
thought that De Wet himself was a man of fair ability, but that the
soul of all his daring enterprises was a foreigner named Theron. This
man has a picked body of thirty skilled scouts, riding on picked
horses, armed only with revolvers, and ranging seven or eight miles
from the main body. De Wet always rode a white horse, and wore a
covert coat. By his side rode ex-President Steyn, unarmed. The
prisoners were fed as well as the Boers themselves, but that was
badly, for they were nearly always short of food, and generally had
only Kaffir corn, with occasional meat. One day a prisoner asked a
field-cornet when they were going to get something to eat. "I don't
care if you're a brass band," he said, "but give us some food." "Well,
I'm very sorry," was the apologetic reply, "we've been trying for a
week to get one of your convoys; it will be all right when we get it."
De Wet himself was very pleasant to them, and took good care they got
their proper rations. They rode always on waggons, and he spoke
feelingly of the horrible monotony of the jolt, jolt, jolt, from
morning to night. They nearly always had a British force close on
their heels, and no sooner had they outspanned for a rest than it
would be "Inspan--trek." "Up you get, Khakis; the British are coming!"
Then pom-pom-pom, whew-w-w-w, as shells came singing over the
rear-guard. At these interesting moments they used to put the
prisoners in the extreme rear, so that the British if they saw them,
could not fire. He accounted for the superior speed of the Boers by
their skill in managing their convoy; every Boer is a born driver (in
fact, most of their black drivers had deserted), and they take waggons
over ground we should shudder at, leaving the roads if need be, and
surmounting impossible ascents. Again they confine their transport to
the limits of strict necessity, and are not cumbered with all the
waggon-loads of officers' kit which our generals choose to allow.
Their rapidity in inspanning is marvellous; all the cattle may be
scattered about grazing, but in five minutes from the word "Trek!"
they are inspanned and ready. Their horses, he said, were wretched,
and many rode donkeys; how they managed to get about so well he never
could understand, but supposed the secret of their success was this
body of well-mounted, reliable scouts, who saved all unnecessary
travelling to the main body. A very large proportion of the Boer force
were foreigners--French, Germans, Dutch, Russians, Norwegians.
The soul of this tent is Jock, an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander. He
was wounded at Modder River, and is now nominally suffering from the
old wound, but there is nothing really the matter with him; and as
soon as the Sister's back is turned, he turns catherine wheels up the
ward on his hands. His great topic is the glory and valour of the
Highland Brigade, discoursing on which he becomes in his enthusiasm
unintelligibly Scotch. It is the great amusement of the rest of us to
get rises out of him on the subject, and furious arguments rage on the
merits of various regiments. He is as simple as a child, and really
seems to believe that the Highland Brigade has won the war
single-handed. He is no hand at argument, and gets crushing
controversial defeats from the others, especially some Berks men, but
he always takes refuge at last "in the thun rred line," as his last
entrenchment. "Had ye ever a thun rred line?" he asks, and they quail.
The matter came to a crisis yesterday, when one of them produced a
handbook on British regiments and their histories. The number of
"honours" owned by each regiment had been a hotly contested point, and
they now sat down and counted them. The Royal Berks had so
many--Minden, Waterloo, Salamanca, Vittoria, Sevastopol, etc. In
breathless silence those accredited to the Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders were counted. There were fewer, and Jock was stunned at
first. "Ah, but ye ha' not counted the thun rred line," he shouted.
"Ga'rn, what battle's that?" they scoffed. "The battle of the thun
rred line," he persisted. Balaclava was on his list, but he didn't
even know it was there that his gallant regiment formed the thin red
line. Yet he had his revenge, for, by a laborious calculation, lasting
several hours, it was found that the united honours of the Scotch
regiments were greater than the united English or Irish.
_September 6._--_Thursday._--I am allowed to go to a chair outside the
tent, a long, luxurious canvas lounge. In the valley below and to the
right lies Pretoria, half buried in trees, and looking very pretty.
Behind it rises a range of hills, with a couple of forts on the
sky-line. Across the valley lies quite a town of tents, mostly
hospitals. We all of us live in pyjamas; some wear also a long coat of
bright blue. Sisters flit about, dressed in light blue, with white
aprons and veils, and brilliant scarlet capes, so that there is no
lack of vivid colour. A road runs in front of the tent; an occasional
orderly gallops past, or a carriage passes with officers.
_September 7._--To my delight this afternoon, I heard a voice at my
tent door, saying, "Is Childers here?" It turned out to be Bagenal,
one of the released Irish Yeomanry, and a friend of Henry's, who had
come from him to look for me. Henry is wounded in the foot, but now
"right as rain." He is in the Convalescent Camp, which is plainly
visible from here, about a mile off. It seems that by another lucky
coincidence he received letters meant for me, and so knew I was in
Pretoria. The whole affair abounds in coincidences, for had I answered
the cable home I should have said "foot slight," or something like it,
and he would have said the same. It would have done for either. We are
lucky to have found one another, for the Secretary's inquiries led to
nothing.
I have been reading in the _Bloemfontein Post_ a report of the
Hospital Commission. I have no experience of General Hospitals, but
some of the evidence brings out a point which is heightened by
contrast with a hospital like this, and that is the importance of
close supervision of orderlies, on whom most of the comfort of a
patient depends. To take one instance only; if a man here is ordered
port wine, it is given him personally by the Sister. To give orderlies
control of wine and spirits is tempting them most unfairly. On the
whole, I should say this hospital was pretty well perfect. The Sisters
are kindness itself. The orderlies are well-trained, obliging, and
strictly supervised. The Civil Surgeon, Dr. Williams, is both skilful
and warm-hearted. There is plenty of everything, and absolute
cleanliness and order.
_The Strange Story of the Occupation and Surrender of Klerksdorp, as
told by a Trooper of the Kimberley Light Horse, taken Prisoner about
July 10, by De Wet, released at Warm Baths on August 28, and now in
this ward._
Early in June, twenty-one men and four officers of the Kimberley Light
Horse rode out thirty miles from Potchefstroom, and summoned the town
of Klerksdorp to surrender. It is a town of fair size, predominantly
Dutch, of course, but with a minority of English residents. The
audacious demand of the Liliputian force was acceded to. They rode in,
and the British flag was hoisted. With charming effrontery it was
represented that the twenty-one were only the forerunners of an
overwhelming force, and that resistance was useless. The Dutch were
cowed or acquiescent, and a splendid reception was given to the army
of occupation; cheering, flag-waving, and refreshments galore. Their
commanding officer mounts the Town Hall steps, and addresses the
townspeople, congratulating them on their loyalty, announcing the
speedy end of the war, hinting at the hosts of British soon to be
expected, and praising the Mayor, a brother of General Cronje, for his
wise foresight in submitting; in return for which he said he would try
to obtain the release of the General from Lord Roberts. The troop is
then escorted by a frantic populace to their camping ground; willing
hands off-saddle the horses, while others ply the tired heroes with
refreshments. The town is in transports of joy. Days pass. The news
spreads, and burghers come in from all sides to deliver up their arms
to the Captain. He soon has no fewer than twelve hundred rifles, of
which he makes a glorious bonfire, thus disarming at one stroke a
number of Boers fifty times greater than his own force. There is no
sign of the overwhelming forces of the British, but their early
arrival is daily predicted, and the delay explained away. Meanwhile,
the twenty-one live in clover, eating and drinking the best of
everything, and overwhelmed with offers of marriage from adoring
maidens. Luxury threatens to sap their manhood. Guards and patrols are
unsteady in their gait; vigilance slackens. A grand concert is given
one night, during which the whole army of occupation is inside one
room. Two guards are outside, but these are Dutch police. At this
moment a handful of determined enemies could have ended the
occupation, and re-hoisted the Boer flag. Weeks pass, still the
British do not come, but the twenty-one hold sway, no doubt by virtue
of the moral superiority of the dominant race.
But at last their whole edifice of empire tumbles into ruin with the
same dramatic suddenness with which it rose. The ubiquitous De Wet
marches up and surrounds the town with an overwhelming force; the
inevitable surrender is made, and the Boer flag flies again over
Klerksdorp after six glorious weeks of British rule by a score or so
of audacious troopers.
_September 8._--Henry turned up in a carriage and pair, and we spent
all the afternoon together. It is a strange place to meet in after
seventeen months, he coming from British Columbia, I from London. A
fancy strikes me that it is symbolic of the way in which the whole
empire has rallied together for a common end on African soil. He is
still very lame, though called convalescent, and we are trying to work
his transfer over here. The day-sister has very kindly written a
letter to the commanding officer at his camp about it. We compared
notes, and found we had enough money to luxuriously watch his carriage
standing outside at five shillings an hour. It cost a pound, but it
was worth it. We had so much to talk about, that we didn't know where
to begin. A band was playing all the afternoon, and a tea-party going
on somewhere, to which Miss Roberts came. She came round the tents
also and talked to the men. It turns out that Henry and I both came
down from the front on the same day from widely different places, for
he was wounded at Belfast, under Buller.
_September 9._--Jock gave us a complete concert last night, songs,
interspersed with the maddest, most whimsical patter, step-dances,
ventriloquism, recitations. He kept us in roars for a long time.
Blended with the simplicity of a baby, he has the wisdom of the
serpent, and has the knack of getting hold of odd delicacies, with
which he regales the ward. He is perfectly well, by the way, but
when the doctor comes round he assumes a convincing air of
semi-convalescence, and refers darkly to his old wound. The doctor is
not in the least taken in, but is indulgent, and not too curious. As
soon as his back is turned, Jock is executing a reel in the middle of
the ward.
The I.L.H. man is very interesting. Like most of his corps, which was
recruited from the Rand, he has a position on a mine there, and must
be well over forty. He had been through the Zulu war too. His squadron
was with Buller all through the terrible struggle from Colenso to
Ladysmith, which they were the first to enter. They were shipped off
to the Cape and sent up to relieve Mafeking with Mahon. He has been in
scores of fights without a scratch, but now has veldt sores. He says
Colenso was by far the worst battle, and the last fortnight before the
relief of Ladysmith was a terrible strain. But he spoke very highly of
the way Buller fed his men. The harder work they did, the better they
fared. (The converse is usually the case.) I have heard the same thing
from other fellows; there seem to have been very good commissariat
arrangements on that side of the country. From first to last all men
who served under Buller seemed to have liked and trusted him.
Curiously enough, he says that Ladysmith was in far worse case than
Mafeking when relieved. The latter could have held out months longer,
he thinks, and they all looked well. In Ladysmith you could have blown
any of them over with a puff of air, and the defence was nearly broken
down.
Judging from this casual intercourse, he represents a type very common
among colonial volunteers, but not encouraged by our own military
system--I mean that of the independent, intelligent, resourceful unit.
If there are many like him in his corps, it accounts amply for the
splendid work they have done. He told me that not one of them had been
taken prisoner, which, looking at the history of the war, and at the
kind of work such a corps has to do, speaks volumes for the standard
of ability in all ranks. But what I don't like, and can't altogether
understand, is the intense and implacable bitterness against the
Boers, which all South Africans such as him show. Nothing is too bad
for the Boers. "Boiling oil" is far too good. Deportation to Ceylon is
pitiful leniency. Any suggestion that the civilized customs of war
should be kept up with such an enemy, is scouted. Making all
allowances for the natural resentment of those who have known what it
is to be an Uitlander, allowing too for "white flag" episodes and so
on, I yet fail to understand this excess of animosity, which goes out
of its way even to deny any ability to Boer statesmen and soldiers,
regardless of the slur such a denial casts on British arms and
statesmanship. After all, we have lost ten thousand or more prisoners
to the Boers, and, for my part, the fact that I have never heard a
complaint of bad treatment (unnecessarily bad, I mean) from an
ex-prisoner, tells more strongly than anything with me in forming a
friendly impression of the enemy we are fighting. Many a hot argument
have we had about Boer and Briton; and I'm afraid he thinks me but a
knock-kneed imperialist.
_September 10._--_Monday._--To my great delight, Henry turned up as an
inmate here, the commanding officer at the convalescent camp having
most kindly managed his transference, with some difficulty. The state
of his foot didn't enter into the question at all, but official
"etiquette" was in danger of being outraged. The commanding officer
was a very good chap, though, and Henry seems to have escaped somehow
in the tumult, unpursued. He had to walk over here.
A wounded man from Warm Baths came in to-day, and said they had had
two days' fighting there; camp heavily shelled by Grobelaar.
_September 13._--_Thursday._--Foot nearly well, but am not allowed to
walk, and very jealous of Henry, who has been given a crutch, and
makes rapid kangaroo-like progress with it. There are a good many in
his case, and we think of getting up a cripples' race, which Henry
would certainly win.
Letters from Williams and Ramsey at the front. It seems Warm Baths is
evacuated, and the Brigade has returned to Waterval. Why? However,
it's nearer here, and will give me a chance of rejoining earlier.
A splendid parcel arrived from home. A Jäger coat, chocolate, ginger,
plums, cigarettes. Old Daddy opposite revels in the ginger; he is the
father of the ward, being forty-seven, a pathetic, time-worn,
veldt-worn old reservist, utterly done up by the fatigues of the
campaign. He has had a bad operation, and suffers a lot, but he is
always "first-rate, couldn't be more comfortable," when the Sisters or
doctors ask him; "as long as I never cross that there veldt no more,"
he adds.
A locust-storm passed over the hospital to-day--a cloud of fluttering
insects, with dull red bodies and khaki wings.
_September 15._--_Saturday._--My foot is well, at any rate for
moderate use, and I am to go out on Monday. What I should like, would
be to rejoin at once, but unfortunately one has first to go through
the intermediate stages of the Convalescent camp, and the Rest camp,
where "details" collect, to be forwarded to their regiments. I don't
look forward to being a detail at all. Henry's foot is much better,
and he is to go out on Monday too. He is still rather lame, though. It
has been most delightful having him here.
The evenings are deliciously cool, and you can sit outside in pyjamas
till 8.30, when you are turned in. We sat out for long last night,
talking over plans. A staff officer has twice been in here, and seemed
much amused by us two brothers having fore-gathered. I asked him about
Paget's brigade, and he seemed to think they were still at or near
Waterval.
_September 16._--_Sunday._--We went to church in the evening; a tent
pleasantly filled up, a Sister at the harmonium, hymns, a few prayers,
the Psalms, and a short sermon; a strange parti-coloured congregation
we were, in pyjamas, slippers and blue coats, some on crutches;
Sisters in their bright uniforms. Chairs were scarce, and Henry and I
sat on the floor. It was dark before the end, and in the dim light of
two candles at the harmonium we looked a motley throng.
Both bound for the Convalescent camp tomorrow.
_September 17._--_Monday._--What we actually did to-day, seeing the
commandant, regaining our kit, drawing new kit, might have been done
in half an hour; but we took from nine till three doing it, most of
which time we were standing waiting. However, about three we found
ourselves in a covered cart with five others and our kits, bound for
the Convalescent camp. We had said good-bye to the Sisters and our
mates. Old Daddy, I am glad to say, had "worked it," as they say, and
was radiant, having been marked up for home. No more of "that there
veldt" for him. Jock had already been sent out and given a post as
hospital orderly, and was now spreading the fame of the Highland
Brigade in new fields. We both felt, on the whole, that we had been
looked after very well in a very good hospital.
The mules jolted us across the valley, and landed us at a big block of
tents, and we took places in one; mother earth again. Tea, the
milkless variety again, at 4.30, and then we went to Henry's old tent
in the General Hospital, which adjoins this camp, and talked to a
friend of his there, a man in the Rifle Brigade, with a bad splintered
knee. He was shot about the same time as Henry in a fine charge made
by his battalion, which I remember reading about.
Both much depressed to-night; the atmosphere of this camp is like a
convict settlement. The food and arrangements are all right, but
nobody knows any one else; all are casual details from every possible
regiment and volunteer corps in the Empire. Nearly all are "fed up;"
nearly all want to get home. A vein of bitter pessimism runs through
all conversations; there is a general air of languor and depression.
Fatigues are the only occupation. I should go melancholy mad here, if
I stayed; but I shall apply to return to the Battery. Even then there
is another stage--the Rest camp--to be gone through. We sat up late
this night outside the lines, talking of this strange coincidence of
our meeting, and trying to plan future ones. He feels the same about
this place, but is still too lame to rejoin his corps.
_September 18._--We washed in a stream some distance off, and then had
breakfast. Then general parade. There must be some two or three
hundred of us, and a wretched, slipshod lot we looked. A voice said,
"Those who want to rejoin their regiments, two paces to the front." A
few accepted the invitation. I gave in my name, and was told to parade
again at two, with kit packed. The next moment we were being split up
into fatigue parties. Fatigues are always a nuisance, but I don't mind
them under my own folk, with a definite necessary job to be done. A
fatigue under strange masters and with strange mates is very irksome,
especially when, as in this case, there is little really to be done,
but they don't want to leave you idle. This was a typical case. I and
a dozen others slouched off under a corporal, who showed us to a
sergeant, who gave us to a sergeant-major, who pointed to a line of
tents (Langman's Hospital), and bade us clean up the lines. To the
ordinary eye there was nothing to clean up, but to the trained eye
there were some minute fragments of paper and cigarette ends. Now the
great thing in a fatigue of this kind is: (1) To make it last. No good
hurrying, as fresh futilities will be devised for you. (2) To appear
to be doing something at all costs. (3) To escape unobtrusively at the
first opportunity. There are some past-masters in the theory and
practice of fatigues who will disregard No. 1, and carry on No. 2 till
the golden moment when, with inspired audacity, they achieve No. 3,
and vanish from the scene. This requires genius. The less confident
ploddingly fulfil Nos. 1 and 2, and don't attempt No. 3. Well, we
loitered up and down, and collected a few handfuls, and when we had
eked out the job to the uttermost, stood together in a listless knot
and waited. "What shall we do?" we asked the corporal. "Do any ----
thing," he despairingly cried, "but do some ---- thing!" By this time
the sergeant-major too was at his wits' end as he looked round his
spotless lines. But you can't easily baffle a sergeant-major. There
was a pump, with a big tub by it, to catch the waste, I suppose. The
artistic possibilities of these simple objects flashed across him. In
his mind's eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool,
and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of
water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet
unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and
went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be
used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions. For it
is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is
the outward symbol of labour; if observation falls on you, you can
wipe your brow and lean on it; you can even use it for a few minutes
if necessary. Without some stage property of this sort only a
consummate actor can seem to be busy. Well, I got to the barrow just
in time. There were two; a Grenadier Guardsman got the other, and amid
envious looks we wheeled them off towards a heap of rubble in the
offing, "conveniently low." Then, with a simultaneous sigh of relief,
we mechanically produced our pipes and tobacco, found comfortable
seats against the pile of rubble, and had a good chat, lazily watching
the genesis of the naiad's grotto in the distance. When we had had a
good smoke, and fought our battles over again, we got up and saw signs
that the fatigue was guttering out; so we put a few stones in each of
the barrows, and, well content, journeyed back to the scene of
operations, and laid our stones round the base of the tub, more
because we knew nowhere else to lay them than for any other reason,
for the sergeant-major had apparently forgotten his grandiose designs
in other schemes, and had disappeared. The fatigue party was thinning.
The corporal said what may be freely translated as "disappear
quietly," and we made off to our camp, where I found Henry, who had
doctor's leave to be excused fatigues, being lame.