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The Field Hospital, of which some account is given in these pages, was known as "No. 4 Stationary Field Hospital." The term "stationary" is hardly appropriate, since the Hospital moved with the column, and, until at least the relief of Ladysmith, it followed the Headquarters' camp. The term, however, serves to distinguish "No. 4" from the smaller field hospitals which were attached to the various brigades, and which were much more mobile and more restless.
At the commencement of the campaign the capacity of the Hospital was comparatively small. The officers in charge were Major Kirkpatrick, Major Mallins, and Lieutenant Simson, all of the Royal Army Medical Corps. These able officers--and none could have been more efficient--were, I regret to say, all invalided as the campaign progressed.
Before the move was made to Spearman's Farm the Hospital was enlarged, and the staff was increased by the addition of eight civil surgeons. It is sad to report that of these two died in the camp and others were invalided. No men could have worked better together than did the army surgeons and their civilian colleagues.
The greatest capacity of the Hospital was reached after the battle of Spion Kop, when we had in our tents about 800 wounded.
Some account of the nurses who accompanied the Hospital is given in a section which follows.
The Hospital was well equipped, and the supplies were ample. We carried with us a large number of iron bedsteads complete with mattresses, blankets, and sheets. These were all presented to the Hospital by Mr. Acutt, a generous merchant at Durban. It is needless to say that they proved an inexpressible boon, and even when the Hospital had to trust only to ox transport, all the bedsteads went with it.
The ladies of the colony, moreover, worked without ceasing to supply the wounded with comforts, and "No. 4" had reason to be grateful for their well-organised kindness.
The precise number of patients who were treated in the Hospital is no doubt recorded in the proper quarter, but some idea of the work accomplished may be gained from the fact that practically all the wounded in the Natal campaign--from the battle of Colenso to the relief of Ladysmith--passed through No. 4 Stationary Field Hospital. The exceptions were represented by the few cases sent down direct by train or ambulance from the smaller field hospitals.
It was from Frere Camp that the army under General Buller started for the Tugela River, and the Hospital pitched its tents in that camp on the evening of Monday, December 11th, 1899. We went up from Pietermaritzburg by train. The contents were soon emptied out on the line, some little way outside Frere Station, and close to the railway the Hospital was put up. That night we all slept under canvas--many for the first time--and all were well pleased that we had at last arrived at the front.
Frere is merely a station on the line of rail which traverses Natal, and as it consists only of some three or four houses and a few trees it can hardly be dignified by the name of hamlet. Frere is simply a speck--a corrugated iron oasis--on the vast undulating plains of the veldt. These plains roll away to the horizon, and are broken only by kopjes and dongas and the everlasting ant-hills.
On the way towards Ladysmith are a few kopjes of large size, from any one of which the line of the Tugela can be seen, with the hills beyond, occupied by the Boer entrenchments, and over them again the hills which dominate Ladysmith. On the way towards Estcourt winds a brown road, along which an endless train of ox-wagons rumble and are lost in the wilderness of the camp.
The river which is reputed to "run" through Frere has long since ceased to run. The water is retained by certain dams, and the pools thus formed are uninviting. The water is the colour of pea-soup, and when in a glass is semi-opaque and of a faint brownish colour. The facetious soldier, as he drinks it, calls it "khaki and water."
In the lowest pool, immediately above the iron railway bridge which has been blown up by the Boers, Tommy Atkins bathes with gusto in what is seemingly a light-coloured mud. Here also he washes his socks and his shirts.
The centre of the camp is the railway station, and that of Frere is the smallest and most unpretending that any hamlet could pretend to. It is, however, crowded out of all reason, and its platform of hard earth is covered with boxes and baggage and sacks and saddles in as much disorder as if they had been thrown in panic from a burning train. Between the little goods shed and the little booking-office are several stands of rifles. A sentry, proud apparently in his covering of dust, is parading one end of the platform, while at the other end a motley crowd of perspiring soldiers are filling water-bottles at the tank which supplies the engine. In the waiting-room a tumbled mass of men are asleep on the floor, while on a bench in front of it two men-of-war's men are discussing an English paper six weeks old.
Outside the station are ramparts of provision boxes and cases of ammunition, and iron water cisterns and mealie bags, and to the fragments of a railing which surrounds the station horses, of all kinds and in all stages of weariness, are tied.
A ragged time-table on the wall, dealing with the train service to Pretoria, and with the precise hour of the arrival of the trains there, seems but a sorry jest. The stationmaster's house has been looted, and the little garden in front of it has been trampled out of being, save for two or three red geraniums which still bloom amidst the dirt. This house is, for the time, the general's headquarters, and before it waves the Union Jack.
When we reached the camp it was stated that 30,000 men were under canvas. A camp of this size must of necessity present an endless scene of bustle and movement. Nothing seemed at rest but the interminable array of white tents and the rows of baggage wagons. Cavalry would be moving in one direction and infantry in another. Here a mounted patrol would be riding out or a couple of scouts coming in. There would be a long line of Kaffirs carrying bales and boxes to a temporary depot, and here a troop of eager horses hurrying to the river to drink. Gallopers would be seen in all directions, and everywhere would be struggling teams of oxen or of mules enveloped in clouds of dust and urged on by sweating men and strange oaths, and by the shrill yells of the Kaffir drivers, whose dust-dried throats gave out noises like the shrieks of parrots.
There was no shade of any kind, and the camp during the day lay dry, dusty, parched and restless under a blazing sun, but at night there was a cool wind and cheery camp fires, and a darkness which blotted out the dusty roads, the dried-up river, the dismal piles of stores, and the general picture of a camp in a desert of baked earth.
Every night a search-light was at work sending dispatches to Ladysmith, and almost every morning could be heard the Boer guns thundering over that unhappy place.
The British soldier looked very smart in his khaki suit when embarking at Southampton, but at Frere he showed the effects of wear, and his tunic, his belt, his pouches, his boots and his face, had all toned down to one uniform tint of dirt colour. He was of the earth earthy. He was unshaven. His clothes had that abject look of want of "fit" that is common to clothes which have been slept in, which have been more than once soaked through, and which have more than once dried upon the body of the owner.
Prominent among the personnel of the Hospital should be placed "Durban," the Hospital dog. He was a brindled bull terrier of exceptional physique and intelligence, and the story about him was that he was a refugee dog who had attached himself to "No. 4" at Durban, and that for want of a better name he had been called after that pleasant town.
He had a great love of adventure, and fell into the life of a moving camp with gusto. His good temper and his placid appreciation of a practical joke were among his many excellent qualities. When the orderlies were paraded on the platform of Pietermaritzburg Station, previous to their being entrained for Frere, "Durban" took his place in the ranks with no little dignity.
The orderlies were devoted to him and he to them, and I have no doubt that, pampered and humoured in every canine whim, he is with the Hospital still.
"Durban" had had a special collar made for him on which was emblazoned the red cross and the name of his company. Just before starting for Chieveley his particular master made him a pair of putties, in which his fore legs were enveloped. He was uncommonly pleased with these embarrassing articles of clothing, and was never tired of going round the camp to show them to his many admirers. At Spearman's he was provided with a travelling kit, consisting of a waterproof cape with two minute panniers on either side, marked with the red cross, and furnished with unappreciated surgical dressings. This exquisite outfit was with difficulty secured in position, and in the early stages of a march was sure to be found dangling beneath "Durban's" ample chest.
His passion for bathing was only equalled by his passion for catching flies, and when we reached the Lesser Tugela he would join party after party on their way to the river, and would bathe as long and as often as he found anyone to bathe with.
He was useful, too, as a watch-dog, and performed no mean services in connection with the commissariat department. Some sheep were given to the Hospital, and for a day or two it was a problem as to how advantage could be taken of this important supply of food. The sheep, when wanted for the kitchen, could not be caught, and could not be shot, and so "Durban" was appealed to in the difficulty. Accompanied by the cook, on certain mornings "Durban" made his way to the little flock out on the veldt, and never failed to pull down a sheep. He followed the cook and the sheep back to the camp with the air of one who deserved well of his country.
At daybreak on the morning of December 15th the Field Hospital was already astir. While it was yet dark the silence of the camp was broken in upon by the rousing of the orderlies, by much slapping upon the sides of silent tents, by much stumbling over darkened tent ropes, and by sudden calls of "Get up, you chaps," "Tumble out," "Chuck yourselves about." "Why don't you wake a man up?" cries out one peevish voice among the recently roused. "Why don't you make a noise?" says another in sleepy tones. "Is the whole camp afire and is the Boers on us, or is this your idea of calling a gentleman?" mutters a sarcastic man, as he puts his head out of the fly of his tent.
In a few minutes everyone in the camp is on the move, for there is little needed to complete a toilet beyond the tightening of a belt and the pulling on of a pair of boots. All are in the best of spirits, and the collecting together of goods and chattels and the preparing of a hurried breakfast proceed amidst infinite chatter and many camp pleasantries. We are at last on the move. We are the last to go. This is the day of the long expected battle, and we are to push on to the front. The real fighting is to begin, and there is not a man who is not possessed by the conviction that the Boers will to-day be swept from the Tugela--if they have not already fled--and that General Buller will have a "walk over."
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