United States or Tanzania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To most men this seemed like being exiled to Siberia; but there was no help for it. Comrades said good-bye when it would have been more cheering to have said au revoir. The train left for Intombi Hospital Camp at six in the morning, carrying its load of those who had been wounded in the previous twenty-four hours, as well as the sick.
On the 12th of March, 100 men of the 80th Regiment, under the command of Captain Moriarty, when marching from Durban to Luneberg, on the north-western frontier of Zululand, were attacked in the night by the enemy; Captain Moriarty and half the force being killed, while the remainder of the party, who were encamped upon the other side of the river Intombi, succeeded in making their escape.
Dysentery and enteric are as bad as ever, but do not increase in proportion to the length of siege. There are 1,700 soldiers at Intombi sick camp now. A great many horses die every day, but not of the "horse-sickness." Their bodies are thrown on waste ground along the Helpmakaar road, and poison the air for the Liverpools and Rifles there.
They were so threatening in their demeanour that had it not been for the little rifle, Intombi, which he carried under pretence of shooting buck, a weapon that they regarded with great awe, they would, he thought, have killed him.
Such service as this was thoughtful indeed, and friends at home will greatly appreciate it. For three weeks at Intombi they were on quarter rations. Then, as Buller's guns were heard in the distance, they were allowed half rations; but on Ash Wednesday morning, the morning of relief, they were reduced to quarter rations again. What this meant who can tell? How could they resist disease?
There are horrors over which we throw a veil. Sufficient that they were necessary horrors that they could not be prevented. But only the doctors and the chaplains know what our men passed through in Intombi camp. But no one complained that was the wonder of it. 'Oh! sir, when do you think Buller will get through? was the nearest to complaint ever heard.
Four pounds of oatmeal sold for 11s. 6d. A four-ounce tin of English tobacco fetched 30s. Out of our original numbers of about 12,000 nearly 3,000 are now sick or wounded at Intombi, and there are over 200 graves there. More helpers are wanted, and to-day Colonel Stoneman summoned 150 loafers from their holes in the river-bank, and called for twenty volunteers.
The hospital camp at Intombi was a collection of tents and large marquees, civilian doctors attending the Volunteers and Army doctors the Regulars. There was also a considerable number of the inhabitants of Ladysmith, not alone women and children, but men. Hence the reason that it got christened Camp Funk by the inhabitants that remained in the town.
He missed by some yards, as I could tell from the sing of the bullet, for these Arabs are execrable shots. Still his attempt at murder irritated me so much that I determined he should not go scot-free. I was carrying the little rifle called "Intombi," that with which, as Hans had reminded me, I shot the vultures at Dingaan's kraal many years before.
Next, through the figments of that retreating dream, I heard the undoubted voice of Hans himself, which of course I knew to be absurd as Hans was lost and doubtless dead, saying: "If you are alive, Baas, please wake up soon, as I have finished reloading Intombi, and it is time to be going.
Word Of The Day