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I had had lunch on board when we arrived at one o'clock, before I was taken off. The reason the journey took so long was that the loading and unloading of stretchers from ship to train is a lengthy job and cannot be hustled. We got to London about five. The E.M.O. was a cheery soul and came and shook hands with me, and then, joy of joys, got four stretcher-bearers to take me to an ambulance.
Anxious, she threaded her way through the stretchers and the hurrying attendants, past the men who were erecting the tents, looking everywhere, making inquiries, until, under the trees by the stream, she saw a heap of straw on which a man was dying. He died as she came up a big, pallid, red-headed zouave, whose blanket, soaked with blood, bore dreadful witness of his end.
And at 6.15 the party of orderlies will be back again at the front door, again the motor-cars will stream up the drive, again the ambulances will come with their stretchers, and again the receiving hall will awaken from its interlude of silence to echo with the activities incidental to a clearing house of those damaged human bundles which are the raison d'être of our great war-hospital.
Crowds of wounded some known to Pierre and some unknown Russians and French, with faces distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where he had spent over an hour, and of that family circle which had received him as a member he did not find a single one.
All hands, therefore, set to work with the boat stretchers to make the dock, which was very easily and quickly accomplished. They then filled her up with sand, almost to the gunwale. "She will be steady enough now, sir," said Jerry.
In addition to this the proper complement of oars and rowlocks, the stretchers, boat-hook, mop, baler, anchor, rudder, yoke, and tiller, together with the compass, masts, and sails, were always stowed in the boat to which they belonged, and were carefully overhauled once every week under the skipper's own eye.
We thought that they were admirals and field-marshals at the very least, but it turned out they were only members of the Volunteer Ambulance Corps, men unfit for military service, who had provided their own cars and received not a penny of pay. With the tenderness of women they put us on stretchers and carried us out to their luxurious ambulances.
During every day of the last rainy season an average of thirty soldiers and officers died there of yellow fever. While I was there I saw two soldiers, one quite an old man, drop down in the street as though they had been shot, and lie in the road until they were carried to the yellow fever ward of the hospital, under the black oilskin cloth of the stretchers.
At this critical moment, my first lieutenant, seeing that something was wrong, fired a shell right over our heads to intimidate the Arabs, and the result showed that it had that effect. The deer was lying on the beach. I ordered the marines to form a cordon round him, and the sailors to bring up the boat stretchers on which to lay the animal.
It is advisable to bind the stretchers with strong thread just behind the notches to prevent splitting, and to loosen the stretchers when the kite is not in use, to allow the fabric to retain as much as possible of its elasticity. The area of the kite affected by wind is about 14 square feet; the total weight, 1-1/2 lb. The cost of material is about 2s.
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