Night, the dearest friend of the soldier, had settled on the veld.  A thousand fires were burning, and there were no sounds save the murmuring voices of myriads of men, and the stamp of hoofs where the Cavalry and Mounted Infantry horses were picketed.  Food and fire, the priceless comfort of a blanket on the ground, and a saddle or kit for a pillow gave men compensation for all the hardships and dangers of the day; and they gave little thought to the morrow.

The soldier lives in the present.  His rifle, his horse, his boots, his blanket, the commissariat, a dry bit of ground to sleep on—­these are the things which occupy his mind.  His heroism is incidental, the commonplace impulse of the moment.  He does things because they are there to do, not because some great passion, some exaltation, seizes him.  His is the real simple life.  So it suddenly seemed to Stafford as he left his tent, after he had himself inspected every man and every horse in his battery that lived through the day of death, and made his way towards the Stay Awhile Hospital.

“This is the true thing,” he said to himself as he gazed at the wide camp.  He turned his face here and there in the starlight, and saw human life that but now was moving in the crash of great guns, the shrieking of men terribly wounded, the agony of mutilated horses, the bursting of shells, the hissing scream of the pom-pom, and the discordant cries of men fighting an impossible fight.

“There is no pretense here,” he reflected.  “It is life reduced down to the bare elements.  There is no room for the superficial thing.  It’s all business.  It’s all stark human nature.”

At that moment his eye caught one of those white messages of the sky flashing the old bitter promise, “We shall reach you soon.”  He forgot himself, and a great spirit welled up in him.

“Soon!” The light in the sky shot its message over the hills.

That was it—­the present, not the past.  Here was work, the one thing left to do.

“And it has to be done,” he said aloud, as he walked on swiftly, a spring to his footstep.  Presently he mounted and rode away across the veld.  Buried in his thoughts, he was only subconsciously aware of what he saw until, after near an hour’s riding, he pulled rein at the door of the Stay Awhile Hospital, which was some miles in the rear of the main force.

As he entered, a woman in a nurse’s garb passed him swiftly.  He scarcely looked at her; he was only conscious that she was in great haste.  Her eyes seemed looking at some inner, hidden thing, and, though they glanced at him, appeared not to see him or to realize more than that some one was passing.  But suddenly, to both, after they had passed, there came an arrest of attention.  There was a consciousness, which had nothing to do with the sight of the eyes, that a familiar presence had gone by.  Each turned quickly, and their eyes came back from regarding the things of the imagination, and saw each other face to face.  The nurse gave an exclamation of pleasure and ran forward.