The limb was more elaborately adjusted, and everything was left in excellent position. Next morning, however, the restless man was found lying on the floor of the marquee, and in his bed was a man who had been shot through the chest. The marquee was crowded and the number of beds were few, and those who could not be accommodated on beds had to lie on stretchers on the ground. The man who was shot in the chest had come in in the night, and had been placed on the only available stretcher. The restless man proceeded to explain that the newcomer seemed worse off than he was, and that he thought the man would be easier on the bed, so he had induced the orderlies to effect the change. The man who was shot in the chest died suddenly, and in due course the restless man was back in his own bed once more.
It was not, however, for long, for on another morning visit the Lancashire lad was found on the floor again, and again beamed forth an explanation that one of the wounded on the ground, who had come in late, seemed to be very bad, and so he had changed over. The present occupant of the bed was in a few days moved down to the base, and the restless man was in his own bed again. But not many days elapsed before he discovered among the fresh arrivals an old chum, who longed to lie on a bed, and thus the good-hearted North-countryman found himself once more on the floor.
The moving of a man with a broken thigh from a bed to the ground and back again means not only such disordering of splints and bandages, but much pain to the patient and no little danger to the damaged limb. So this generous lad was talked to seriously, and with a faintly veiled sternness was forbidden to give up his bed again on any pretence. In the little attempt he made to excuse himself he returned once more to his original joke and said, with a broad grin: "But you see, doctor, I am such a restless man."
One instance of the indomitable pluck of the British soldier deserves special notice. A private in the King’s Royal Rifles, of the name of Goodman, was brought from Spion Kop to No. 4 Field Hospital in an ambulance with many others. He was in a lamentable plight when he arrived. He had been lying on the hill all night. He had not had his clothes off for six days. Rations had been scanty, and he had been sleeping in the open since he left the camp. He had been struck in the face by a fragment of shell, which had carried away his right eye, the right upper jaw, the corresponding part of the cheek and mouth, and had left a hideous cavity, at the bottom of which his tongue was exposed. The rest of his face was streaked with blood, which was now dried and black--so black that it looked as if tar had been poured on his head and had streamed down his cheek and neck. Eight hours had been occupied on the journey to the hospital, and eight hours is considered to be long even for a railway journey in a Pullman car.