If you were not there to time, no matter the nature of your injury, you received no attention.  Similarly, if the number of patients lined up outside the diminutive hospital were in excess of those to whom he could give attention during the hours he had set forth, he would turn the surplus away with the intimation that they could present themselves the next day at the same hour when perhaps he would be able to see to them.  It did not matter to him how serious was the injury or the urgency for attention.  His hours were laid down, and he would not stay a minute later for anything.  Fortunately, Dr. Ascher, who resented this inflexible system, would attend the most pressing cases upon his own initiative, for which, it is needless to say, he received the most heartfelt thanks.

Before the duty of examining the wounded soldiers commenced there was a breeze between Dr. Ascher and the military surgeon.  The former insisted that the patients should receive attention as they lined up—­first come to be first served, and irrespective of nationality.  But the military doctor would have none of this.  His hatred of the British was so intense that he could not resist any opportunity to reveal his feelings.  I really think that he would willingly have refused to attend to the British soldiers at all if his superior orders had not charged him with this duty.  So he did the next worse thing to harass our heroes.  He expressed his intention to attend first to the Belgians, then to the French, and to the British last.  They could wait, notwithstanding that their injuries were more severe and the patients more numerous than those of the other two Allies put together.  This decision, however, was only in consonance with the general practice of the camp—­the British were always placed last in everything.  If the military surgeon thought that his arbitrary attitude would provoke protests and complaints among the British soldiers he was grievously mistaken, because they accepted his decision without a murmur.

The queue outside the hospital was exceedingly lengthy.  The heat was intense and grew intolerable as the day advanced and the sun climbed higher into the heavens.  To aggravate matters a dust-storm blew up.  The British wounded at the end of the line had a dreary, long, and agonising wait.  Half-dead from fatigue, hunger, and racked with pain it is not surprising that many collapsed into the dust, more particularly as they could not secure the slightest shelter or relief from the broiling sun.  As the hours wore on they dropped like flies, to receive no attention whatever,—­except from their less-wounded comrades, who strove might and main to render the plight of the worst afflicted as tolerable as the circumstances would permit.  Dr. Ascher toiled in the hospital like a Trojan, but the military doctor was not disposed to exert himself unduly.