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Updated: May 7, 2025
Macpherson and Hordern had found themselves in a particularly warm corner. Some fifteen men of the Gloucesters, with an officer, were in a donga which provided hardly any cover, and the two chaplains going out to the Field Hospital had perforce to share with their comrades the dangers of the terrible position.
Daily at 9.30 the mournful procession passed to the cemetery. That cemetery contained at last about seven hundred bodies. Every grave was marked and numbered. Mr. Hordern began this work, but when his health failed, Mr. Murray continued and completed it. So that there is a strict record left of every one lying there, and any one wishing to erect a tombstone can do so.
The chaplains sent out from Aldershot were men whom every one esteems and loves. The praise of the Rev. R. Deane Oliver is on every one's lips. Of the Rev. A.F.C. Hordern we shall have occasion to speak when we come to the siege of Ladysmith. The Rev. T. P. Moreton is an eloquent preacher and a Christian gentleman, interested in all good work. And what shall we say of the Rev. A.W.B. Watson?
Those were absent-minded beggars absent-minded for themselves! Mr. Hordern was talking to a starved wreck of a man one day, and he asked him what was the first thing he wanted when the relief came through. He expected to hear him say food of some sort.
Next day, March 1, General Buller and his staff rode in. 'I have only to add that, by the good hand of God upon me, I have been preserved all through from sickness and disease. Of all things the men dreaded enteric. 'My lad, said Mr. Hordern to one of the men who had just come into hospital, 'have you got enteric fever? 'No, sir, was the reply; 'I am only wounded.
It remains for us to tell the story of Christian work in connection with the siege, and through all the darkness of those terrible four months such work runs as a golden thread of light. =Christian Workers in Ladysmith.= There were in Ladysmith when the siege began three Church of England chaplains and one acting chaplain, viz.: Rev. A.V.C. Hordern, attached to the Cavalry Brigade; Rev.
'Often, says Mr. Hordern, 'they used to hold them in the trenches, so as to be out of reach of the Boer guns. All the men had their rifles, ready to rush to their posts at a moment's notice.
Macpherson, Thompson, Owen S. Watkins, Cawood, and Hardy, together with Father Ford, remained in the town and camp. Messrs. Hordern, Tuckey, Pennington, and Murray, together with Father O'Donnell, the Roman Catholic chaplain, went to Intombi. Later on, when the hospital became so crowded that it was impossible for the enfeebled staff of chaplains to cope with the work, Mr. Macpherson joined them.
=Personal Dangers Met by Chaplains on Duty in the Field.= One or two short stories may put into clearer perspective the personal danger of our chaplains on the field. Messrs. Hordern and Tuckey were both with their men in the Lombard's Kop fight. Mr. Hordern was attached to the Field Hospital, which was sheltering from the shot and shell under the shadow of a huge hill.
The Red Cross was distinctly marked on the ambulance wagons, and the Indian dhooli-bearers must have been clearly seen; but as soon as the hospital emerged from the cover of the hill a Boer gun opened fire upon it, and very soon shell was falling upon all sides. With Mr. Hordern was the Rev. S.H. Hardy, and both of them were exposed to the full fire of the enemy. Mr.
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