New-York tribune., 1903-06-27

cumbed they lay, of cold wounds and ex-
haustion, and dozen others were in desperate
case.
Our surgeons went to work at once. and until
midnight L attended on them. preparing the hnt'
washing the bloodstained instruments, chang
ing the water in the pals. and performing other
necessary but more grewsome tasks which
need not particulariZe. AT midnight the young
cavalry surgeon. who had been freely dosed with
brandy, professed himself ready to take over the
minor casualties The two hospital surgeons. by
this time worn out accepted the offer and with
drew No thought of me.
understand that about hour later as sat
waiting for orders on the edge of an unoccupied
bed (from which dead man had been carried
out little before midnighD, 1 must have
dropped across it in sleep of utter exhaustion
1t appears too, that the young doctor. finding
me there a short while after carried me out and
laid me on the ground with my head against the
hut. He never admitted this. for had been at
tending upon him. off and on. since his arrival
and that he failed to recognize me might nave
been awkwardly accounted for But L cannot
believe (as certainly L do not remember) that or
my own motion I crawled outside the hut ana
stretched myself on the frozen ground, or that
exhausted as l was. 1 could have walked ten
yards in my sleep.
At all events the chill of the bitter dawn
out both arms-or. rather, tried to stretch tnem-
At once knew that a man was stretched beside
me- and still dazed with sleep, 1 rolled over
onto my right elbow. raised myself little and
peered into his face.
1t was pinched and cold. His eyes stared
straight up at the dawn. From it my gaze
travelled slowly the faces of three other
men laid out accurately alongside of him, feet to
feet, head to head.
1 sank back, not yet comprehending. gazed UP
at the gray sky for a while, then slowly raised
| myself my left elbow.
On that side lay score of sleepers. all fiat on
their backs. and all equally still. Then under
stood and leaped up with scream 1t was
line of corpses and I had been laid out beside
| them for burial at dawn
A sleepy orderly-a friend of mine-poked his
| head out of the doorway of the next hut L
| pointed to the spot where had been lying.
"They must ha' done it in the dark he said,
slowly regarding the bodies.
1 suppose that my story. getting about the
camp must have penetrated to headquarters.
| for on Christmas Day. transport arriving and
| landing light guns and detachment Of
artillery, 1 sent forward with them toward
Villa del Ciervo on the left bank of the Agueda,
where by all accounts the sd posted.
Our battery was but six light 6-pounders,
yet even with these moved over the frozen
and slippery roads at snaiIs pace, the men
tearing their boots to ribbons they hung on
to the drag ropes-for the artillery captain was
a martinez and refused to lock the wheels, de-
claring that it would damage the carriages OF
damage to his he never seemed to think;
and 1, being fool enough to volunteer-though
my weight on the rope could have counted for
next to nothing-found myself on the second day
without heels to my shoes and without shoes at
all he ird is keel
reached the Agueda in time for the fighting had
we not been met at Coimbra by order to
leave our guns in the magazine there and hurry
forward to Ciudad Rodrigo, where my comrades
were required to work the 2Ioounders which
composed the bulk of Lord Wellington's siege
train.
| Having been supplied with new boots from
| the stores in Coimbra, pushed on eastward
| through torrents of rain. which converted every
valley bottom into a quag, that our march
| was scarcely less arduouS than before, and the
men grumbled worse than they had when drag
| ging the guns over the frozen hill roads They
had been forced to leave their wagons behind at
| Combra. and marched like infantry soldiers.
| each man carrying haversack with four days
| provisions. we'll as an extra pair of boots
But what seemed to vex and defect them most
was a rrlrnor that Quartermaster General Muir
| ray had been sent down from the front on leave
| of absence for England. They argued positively
| that, with Murray absent, the commander in
| chief could not be intending any action of i'm
portance; they doubted that he had twenty siege
guns at his call even If he stripped Almeida and
| left that fortress defenceless. Moreover. who
would open siege in such country In the
depth of such winter this?
Nevertheless. had sooner passed the
bridge of the Goa than discovered our mis-
take, the roads below Almeida being choked
with a continuous train of mule transports. and
tumbrils light carts and wagons heaped with
fascines. gabions, long balks of timber, sheaves
of spades and siege implements-all crawling
southwark. My artillerymen were halted to
await and take charge of three brass guns said
to be on their way down from Pintrel under an
escort of Portuguese militia: and. taking leave
of them was handed over to company of the
23d Regiment-hurrying in from OF the out
lying hamIets near Celorico-with whom I
reached on January the squalid villages OF
Boden, in and around which the sd lay in face
of the doomed fortress across the river
Here, then, is at last thought 1 that
night I curled myself to sleep in a loft where
Sergeant Henderson considerably found
corner for under some pathetically empty
fowl roosts. Sergeant Henderson had claimed
me, in his captains absence. from a distracted
adtutant who wanted to know where the devil I
had come from. and why, and If 1 would kindly
make myself and leave him in peace-a
display of temper pardonable in man who had
just come in wet to his middle from fording the
river amid cannoning blocks of ice.
Here was war at last. and 1 was not long in
making acquaintance with it. 1 awoke to find.
by the light of the lantern swung from the roost
overhead he dozen men in the loft awake and