Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-23
Second Installment Of Rudyard Kip
ing's South African Contribution.
LOADING TEE HOSPITAL TRAIN
The Social Side of "a Railroad
Station.
JUDGMENT DAY REHEARSAL

NGOpyr1Snt, lSU, py Huuyaru kipfin2)
Number Three fought her way inch by
inch, and was met by a little knot of army
sisters. In civilization their uniform is
hideous, but out here one sees the use of
the square-cut vermillion cape. Everything
else is dust colored, SO a man does not ask
where sister may be. She leaps to the
eye across all the camp.
And where are our wounded?' asked
Number Three.
Still coming in from Paardebere.
They're being dressed. You'll get them
later. Where are your spare doctors?"
We had come up with six surgeons taken
from the big Wynberg and Roondesbosch
hospitals, where for months they had lived
on a promise of work at the front.
They We're not r. A. NJ. c. men, but house
surgeons, fresh from the home hospitals,
young, enthusiastic and happy, though
their baggage had been cut down to the
thirty-tive-pOund scale, and they had not
the ghost of a notion where they were GO
ing.
They were uncarted like stays on Modder
platform, gazed awhile, met a man in au-
thority, and were swiftly commandment
Two or three doctors lay dead or wounded
across the plains, and it was a hot press
for the medical service.
Half a mile across the plain, behind the
graves of the Highland brigade lay the
hospital tents, and thither loaded mule
and wagons were heading Like Num-
Der Three, they had been al work a weary
While. There came no surprise or bewilder-
ment hardly even any pity, to the onlooker
as the big Red Crosses lurched and pitched.
Ihis, said the wagons, is the custom with
the wounded. Stricken men are gathered
as soon as possible by the bearer compa-
MES, whose casualty list is a heavy one
They are dressed for the first time swift
iy and efficiently: they are then put into the
tllted wagons TIL thew he al
that sends them to the rail. The rail takes
the badly wounded to Cape Town and the
sea that leads to Netley
rms Is the system, said the wagons, and
mere was the system all naked to the glar-
ing day.
Three nights had the wagons been on the
road-rained upon. Numbered over and
lightened about-joted and ierked and
Jared, but the long and short of it was that
OF 500 wounded the wagons had lost not
one.
Social Center.
Would the hospital take delivery please
said the wagons and they drew aside to
rest, for their cattle were very, very tired
AS for Number Three? No, it would no.
be wise to visit Magdrsfontein. The train
might be filled and scEt away at any mo-
ment.
There was an old official ring about this
and | was not the least surprised that W,
waited eleven hours-time 10 have gone to
Magcrsfontein and back on all tours But
glad ! stayed by Number Three 1t is
early days 10 make that field of blood a
show place. and-one can collect shells on
other beaches when peace comes again.
the station was the center of local So
ciety
The staff. including German prince
lived across the road in a battered cara
vanserai with scores of ponies tied to the
Veranda.
Tho b,v rod Itch ID
cases, badly needed at Kimberley, and with
mail bags, badly needed by the men who
came up. fingered them cuEiously, and skunk
away. Business first, mails later
The telegraph office was a small edition
OF De Aar-hideously ovcrworked.
A knot of sappers came up from the river
where they had been tamping ballast under
new siding. Other sappers with "R. P.
r. on their hats followed
These last were the details of the railway
pioneers, skilled mccha n:cIans, and the
like of Johannesburg. and under the Crime
and the khaki one met Z host of n certain
weird dinner given in TIE Gold Reef CITY
two years ago.
one gets used to privates with VISITING
cares and 1t y perfectly natural to discuss
| bacteriology. West African exploration and
the ethics OF publishing, the intricacics OF
tie bankruptcy act and the prospects OF
the labor party in South Australia with
spGrred troopers
So 1t was not discorcerting to meet mer
VI the thltral siege, once prisoners in the
hands of Omra Khan. Old schoolmatcs In
d'an stan corps men doing duty as tai
t~isteIs in the transport lost acquatn.
taAGes of ten years ago. side by side with
the fellow passengers of three weeks ago
| unreoognizable today under the sunburn
hair and dust
II was only an undress rehearsal for the
| day of judgment
a detail of army service men en- route
Tor kimberiey spread themselves at ease
on their baggage and chaffed d quarter
master sergeant who had lost his sword
nut by the regulations was miserably tied
10 the empty scabbard till he could return
the thing to store
A Knot of excited Life Guards demand.
Ell news or French's division.
OUT since Sunday week and no news
we belong to EN-. We were sick We want
20 RECON-. Do you know where he is?"
colonial suggested that cavalry diyis-
IONS Always suspend operations for cor
Porai OF horse and two dozen troopers
"A gunner driver in a cart pored over n
trree Gays Old Cape paper, for there is No
news at the ModGer
a man with a drawn face came out of no.
"here and told story. His wife had died
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