even disappeared, four others were
killed; so to my one surviving comrade I said, 'Look here, corporal,
we'll stick this out till one of us is wounded then the other must
look after him.'" Presently that unlucky shell made a victim of this
plucky fellow; but a hero it could not make him. He was that already.

A company of the West Yorkshire Mounted Infantry only twenty strong
had sustained, in storming a kopje, no less than ten casualties. The
lieutenant, shot through the base of the skull, lay in that hospital
in utterly helpless, if not hopeless, collapse; and near to him was
his sergeant who, while bandaging the wounds of a comrade, was shot
through the bridge of the nose, and his eye so damaged it had to be
removed; whilst yet another of this group, shot through the shoulder,
with characteristic cheerfulness said, "Oh, it's nothing, sir. I'll be
at it again in a week." Some of them would say that, brave fellows, if
their heads were blown off--or would try to!

Writing from Colesberg at a somewhat later date Mr Crewdson informed
me that going the round of hospitals,--where he met representatives
from Ceylon, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and
the United Kingdom,--had filled much of his time during the previous
fortnight. "I cannot tell the sweet brave things I have heard from
tongues that had almost lost their power to speak. One was a Canadian
lad, who had passed through his course as a student for the ministry,
and being refused as a chaplain had volunteered as a trooper, and when
the chaplain tenderly asked, 'How are you, old man?' he received in a
kind of gasp this reply: 'Trusting Jesus!' Another, now nearly
convalescent, said, 'I have been a Christian for twenty years, but the
weeks spent in hospital have taught me more of God, and of the wonders
of His grace, than years of health.' His eyes glistened and then
dimmed as with faltering voice he added, 'I want to say, that it was
good for me that I was afflicted.'"

[Sidenote: _A battlefield scene no less pathetic._]

In the course of these incessant hospital rounds Mr Crewdson found an
Australian whose leg had been shattered by an explosive bullet and who
told him this strange tale. When thus wounded he fell between two
rocks and found himself unable to move, but while lying there a young
well-dressed Boer discovered him, and with a perfect English accent
said, "Are you much hurt, old fellow?" The Australian, suspecting
treachery, turned