his ruined
khaki jacket, and an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander bestowed upon me a
pair of goggles he had taken from the face of a dead Boer.

By the time we reached Richmond Road the usual influx of private
offerings for the wounded had, as usual, begun. We always left the front
with the ordinary comforts of an ambulance train; by the time we reached
Capetown we looked like a sort of cross between a green-grocer's stall
and a confectioner's shop. We simply didn't know what to do with the
masses of fruit and flowers, puddings and jellies, which the people
along the line forced upon us. These kindly folk--men, women and
children--thrust their various offerings through the windows; then they
peeped through themselves, and the women would say "poor dear" to some
six-foot guardsman, who smiled his thanks or told them how he got hit.
As I say, the train was, by the time we reached Wynberg, simply choked
with luxuries--some of them quite unsuitable for wounded men--a
veritable _embarras de richesses_. We used to begin the journey with
moderation and end it with a species of debauch! But it was most kind
and thoughtful of these colonists all the same.

By the time we reached Wynberg on 16th December it was quite dark. A row
of ambulance waggons stood ready beyond the platform, and in front of
them a line of St. John's Ambulance men, fresh from England, looking
very spruce and neat. The wounded were speedily conveyed to the waggons
and safely lodged in the hospital. On a former occasion one poor fellow
died at the moment he was being lifted out of the train. My comrades and
myself had had about six hours' sleep in three consecutive nights, and
after we had remade the beds and swept the train we slept soundly. Next
morning we were on duty till twelve, when we were allowed a few hours'
leave. A warm bath and a lunch at the Royal Hotel with a good bottle of
wine was very welcome, and we were all in excellent spirits when the
whistle sounded and we steamed away once more to the north with 600
miles before us.

We halted again at De Aar, where we remained till Christmas. The weather
grew hotter and hotter. The whirling dust, the stony plains, the glaring
heat, the evening coolness, the glowing sunsets, the bare rocky hills,
how it all recalled the Sudan! Train after train lumbered by with stores
and guns and ammunition for the front, the whole of this enormous
traffic being run on a single line of rails. Amongst the most
troubl