The light of the dawn fell upon this woe-begone line, and dazzled the eyes of many with the unaccustomed glare. Those who were not too ill were in excellent spirits, for this was the first step on the journey homewards. Such were excited, garrulous and jocular, and busy with pipes and tobacco. A few were already weary, and had on their lips the oft-repeated expression that "they were fed up with the war." Many a head was lifted out of the hood to see if any old chum could be recognised along the line, and from those would come such exclamations as: "Why are you here, Tom?" "Where have you been hit?" "Ain’t this a real beanfeast?" "Thought you were stiff." "We’re on the blooming move at last."
Many of the men on the stretchers were delirious, and some were almost unmanageable. One poor fellow was babbling about the harvest and the time they were having. He was evidently in his dream once more among the cornfields of England, and among plenteous beer. Another shook the canvas hood of his stretcher and declared with vehemence that he "would not go in any bally sailing boat, he was going in a steamer, and the colonel would never let his men go in a rotten sailing ship." Whereupon he affirmed that "he was going to chuck it," and proceeded to effect his purpose by rolling off his stretcher.
When the Volunteer Ambulance Corps marched along the line of stretchers they were the subject of much chaff, and many comments such as these burst forth: "You’re being paraded before the General. So buck up!" "Pull up yer socks." "You with the kettle! Do you take yourself for a gipsy van?" "We ain’t buying no hardware to-day--go home." "You know there’s a Government handicap on this job, and half a crown to the man who gets in first, so you had better hurry my stretcher along." And so on; in the dialect of London, of Dublin, of Lancashire, and of Devon, with infinite variety and with apparent good spirits.
There were many anxious cases among this crowd on the stretchers. One, for example, was an Irishman named Kelly, a private in the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was as plucky a soldier as the plucky soil of Ireland has ever produced. His right arm had been smashed on Spion Kop. He had been on the hill two nights; and when the darkness fell had spent his time in crawling about on the ground, holding the sleeve of his shattered arm between his teeth, dragging his rifle with his left hand, and searching the bodies of the dead for any water that may have been left in their water-bottles. He had lost an incredible amount of blood, and when he reached the hospital it was necessary to amputate the whole upper limb, including the shoulder-blade and the collar-bone. He went through this ordeal with infinite courage and with irrepressible good humour. He had been the strong man of his regiment and a great boxer, and, as he casually said, "He should miss his arm."