As to the Bible, it is still very much in evidence.
Not a single kit but contained one; usually the family one in old brown
leather. Now it is an historical fact that Bible-reading adversaries are
very awkward customers to tackle, and remembering that, I dislike these
Bibles.
More practically important than love-letters and Bibles, we found also a
lot of abandoned ammunition, shell and Mauser. Our ambulance parties
were at work in the hills. Several Boers, as they fled, had been shot
down near the laager. We found one, shot through the thigh, groaning
very much, and carried him into the shade of a waggon, and did what we
could for him. Meantime some of us had gathered bits of boxes and wood,
and made a fire and boiled water. Tea-cups, coffee, sugar, and biscuits
were found, and we made a splendid feast in the midst of the desolation.
Horrid, you will say, to think of food among the dead and wounded. And
yet that coffee certainly was very good. Somehow I believe the Boers
understand roasting it better than we do.
Before going we collected all the ammunition and heaped it together and
made a pile of wood round it which we set ablaze and then drew out into
the plain and reined in and looked back. Never shall I forget the view.
The hills, those hills the English infantry had carried so splendidly,
were between us and the now setting sun, and though so close were almost
black with clean-hacked edges against the sunset side of the sky.
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