It is impossible to speak too highly of the heroism of these Intombi chaplains.  At first it is hard for most men to face shot and shell, but there is always a thrill of excitement with it, and there is a strange fascination in danger of this kind, which has a weird charm all its own.  But to face death in a great hospital camp such as this!  To be all day and half the night visiting the sick and dying where there are no comforts, very little food, and the medicine has run short; to see that hospital steadily grow,—­men on the bed-cots, men lying between them; to watch men struggling in the agonies of the disease, with dying men close beside them; to have to step over one prostrate figure to get to the side of some dying man and whisper words of comfort and prayer, while shrieks of agony come from either side; to feel weary, becoming gradually weaker through want of food, to know that ere long one’s own turn would come, and the inexorable disease would claim its victim; to go through the same daily round of loathsome duty, and find in it one’s highest privilege; to endure, to suffer, to dare, to sympathise, to soothe, to help; evening by evening to listen to the last requests of dying men, and morning by morning to lay them in their hastily dug graves—­all this requires heroism compared with which the heroism of battle pales into insignificance.  We do not wonder that the Intombi chaplains were mentioned in despatches, and that the love of the soldier goes out to these devoted men.

As Mr. Watkins felt it his duty to remain in Ladysmith Town with his men, Mr. Murray had charge of the Wesleyans in Intombi, as well as of the Presbyterians.  But, as a matter of fact, in face of such stern realities as disease and death, all names and sects were forgotten.  The chaplains were all brethren, the men were all human beings for whom Christ died, and each did his best for all.  Open-air parade services were tried for the convalescents, but it soon became impossible to hold them.  The chaplains went round the marquees and prayed with and talked to the men.  The Church of England chaplains had Holy Communion every Sunday morning, and for one month, until sickness prevented, there was daily Communion.

By-and-by the list of dangerous cases became so large that it was impossible to go round in one visit.  Enfeebled by work and want, the chaplains struggled from bed to bed, until often they were too weak to finish their task.  Their only relief was to get an occasional run into Ladysmith, and to that they looked forward as a haven of rest.  What mattered if shells did fly about!—­they had an occasional stray bullet at Intombi too—­and shells, much as they were dreaded, were better than enteric.

It was during one of these occasional breaks that the four Church of England chaplains were having lunch at the Ladysmith Hotel, when a shell burst right in the hotel itself.  They were covered with dust, but that was all.  Not so easily, however, did they escape disease.  One after the other at Intombi failed.  Mr. Hordern was down with dysentery for between five and six weeks, Mr. Macpherson eight weeks, Mr. Tuckey had Natal fever for three weeks, and all of them were left very enfeebled.