’Having started the dhooli-bearers with their heavy loads on their way to town, Captain Hardy and myself continued our search along the ridge for wounded and dead, but were thankful to find there were no more.  Once again we turned our faces to beleaguered Ladysmith, having collected, in all, two killed and fifteen wounded men, many of them badly hurt, poor fellows.

’The two following days were unusually quiet, and on the Sunday I was enabled to hold four services, which were very well attended, and to us all seasons of rich blessing.  But on Sunday night the Rifle Brigade made an attack upon Surprise Hill, capturing a gun that for weeks past had been worrying us considerably, and blowing it into fragments in the air.  The attack was well planned, and would have resulted in very small loss to us, only in blowing up the gun the first fuse used proved defective, and another train had to be laid, thus causing a delay of over ten valuable minutes.  The result was that the Boers had time to turn out in force from a neighbouring laager, and were waiting to receive our men as they came down the hill.  Then ensued a scene of indescribable confusion; in the darkness it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe, and the shouts of our men were answered in English by the enemy, thus making the confusion a hundred times worse.  One who was present told me that it was the most terrible experience of his life.  They came down the hill between a lane of blazing rifles, sometimes the flash not being more than five yards from them.  Few ever expected to get out alive, but the men behaved splendidly, charging with the bayonet again and again, and when at last the foot of the hill was reached asking their Colonel (Lieut.-Colonel Metcalfe) for permission to charge again.

=Within the Boer Lines.=

’Of course, as soon as it was light the doctors of the Bearer Company, with dhoolies, were out to seek amongst the rocks for the wounded and the slain, and it was not long before I was on my way to join them.  But on reaching our outpost on Observation Hill I was told that the Boers were so infuriated at the loss of another gun that they had taken the doctors prisoners and were going to send them to Pretoria.  But just at that moment a native came in with a note from the senior medical officer, asking that surgical necessaries be sent at once, for many of the wounded were seriously hurt.  After much parley through the telephone with head-quarters, it was at last decided that the things be sent at once, and if I were willing that I should be the bearer, for the Boers were more likely to respect “the cloth” than anything else; also by previous visits I had become known to many of the burghers.  So forthwith I started upon what many said was my way to Pretoria, and on reaching the enemy, truth to say, it looked very much like it.  They were furiously angry, and I was made to join the little group of doctors, bearers and wounded, who, under a strong guard, were sitting and lying under the shade of a tree.

[Illustration:  AMBULANCE WAGONS ON THEIR WAY TO THE FIELD.]