Complaints have been from time to time made, by persons who
did not know the circumstances, that our stretcher-bearers have been
shot by the Boers. If this took place during an action no blame can
fairly attach to the enemy, for in repelling an attack they cannot of
course be expected to cease fire because stretcher-bearers show
themselves in front. The hail of bullets comes whistling along--ispt,
ispt, ispt--and everywhere little jets of sand are spurting up. Can we
wonder if now and then a stretcher-bearer is struck down? To put the
case frankly--he is doing a brave work, but he has no business to be
where he is. It is easy to see why the usages of war do not permit the
presence of ambulance men in the firing line. Quite apart from the
serious losses incurred by so valuable a corps, advantage might be taken
by an unscrupulous enemy to bring up ammunition under cover of the Red
Cross.
It is no easy task in the dark or in a fading light to find the
khaki-clad figures lying prone upon the brown sand. But when the wounded
are discovered the ambulance man finds out as quickly as he can the
position and nature of the wound, and a "first aid" bandage or a rough
splint is applied. The sufferer is raised carefully upon a stretcher or
carried off in an ambulance waggon to a "dressing-station" somewhere in
the rear. If there are not enough stretchers, or the wound is merely a
slight one, the disabled soldier is borne away on a seat made of the
joined hands of two bearers.
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