He had been reported missing.  In fact, he had stayed behind to look after some of his men who were down or lost.  He is known for his excellent government of a district in Crete.  I gave him the water.  He recognised me at once and was conscious, but his singularly blue eyes looked out of a deadly yellow and bloodless face, and his hands seemed to have the touch of death on them.  When I said I was sorry, he answered, “But we got the gun.”  He was shot through the chest, though, as he pointed out, he was not spitting blood.  Another bullet had entered the left hip and passed out, breaking the right hip-bone.  That is the dangerous wound.  He said he did not feel much pain.

The wounded were taken down to the tents set up in the ravine of the Port Road between the Headquarters and the old camp.  That is the main hospital (11th and 18th) since the wounded were shifted out of the Town Hall, because the Boers shelled it so persistently.  Since the Geneva flag was removed from the hall’s turret not a single shell has been fired near the building.  The ravine—­“kloof” is the word here, like “cleft”—­is fairly safe from shells, though the Bulwan gun has done its best to get among the tents ever since spies reported the removal.

It is fully exposed to those terrible dust storms which I described in an earlier letter.  In the afternoon we had one of the worst I have seen.  The sand and dust and dry filth, gathered up by the hot west wind from the plain of the old camp, swept in a continuous yellow cloud along the road and down into the ravine.  It blotted out the sun, it blinded horses and men, it covered the wounded with a thick layer.  I have described its horrible effects before.  Imagine what it is like to have a hospital under such conditions, practically unsheltered—­to extract bullets, to staunch blood, to amputate.  One admires the Boers as a race fighting for their freedom, soon to be overthrown on behalf of a mongrel pack of speculators and other scoundrels.  But I did not like them any better when I saw our wounded in the dust-storm to-day, and remembered why they were there.

In the afternoon a white woman was killed by a shell as she was washing clothes in the river.  She is the first woman actually killed, though others have died from premature child birth.  I don’t know which gun killed her, but parts of the town and river hitherto safe were to-day exposed to fire from the 6 in. gun which was removed from Middle Hill a few days ago, and is now set up on Thornhill’s farm, due west of the town.  It commands a very wide district—­the old camp, the Long Valley which the Maritzburg road crosses, the Great Plain behind Bluebank, and most of our western positions.  It began firing early in the morning and continued at intervals all day.  For an hour or two people were surprised at seeing a free balloon sailing away towards Bulwan.  It turned out to be one of Captain Heath’s dummies, which had got away.  He tells me it will be entirely useless to the enemy in any case.