There are men of all sizes among them: giants whose shoulders are bowed with misery, beardless youths with the bearing of Ephebus, veterans wearing on their breasts the ribbons of the Transvaal. Men are there thin enough to frighten. With caps pulled down over their eyes, hands in their pockets, their shoulders bent under the soaking rain, they stamped the ground with their broken shoes, without uttering a word. From time to time there is a slight bustle, a little altercation; it is a soldier who tries to creep forward and get a better place, and who is put back quickly and by brute force to the left of the column. The English know how to be calm and patient while waiting for anything, but once they are roused nothing stops them. In silence these men wait patiently. What do they want? What dark conspiracy are they hatching in the shadows with the help of the silence of night. Who will be the victim of this horde of half-starved wretches in rags, despairing and ashamed. They wait. Suddenly a ray of light flashes abruptly into the trembling darkness, betraying the opening of a door. “Here they are.” Muscles harden under the ragged garments, chests swell, bodies are poised ready. A formidable, savage struggle, accompanied by a hoarse roar, transforms the peaceful and silent crowd into a threatening hurricane, from which soon cries and oaths arise. The light, swinging backwards and forwards, shows for a second angular profiles, criminal faces, stamped with ferocious brutality, twitching hands, and arms knotted and tattooed. Sinister sight! The noise increases; they push; some struggle to advance; others to draw back. Helmets are flying; the uproar and the cries destroy the peace of the night. They come to blows, fists fall at random in the gloom with a dull sound. The fight becomes furious. It is a battle of demons in a hell deprived of light. Those nearest the kitchen stoop, making wild and savage gestures; they seem to want to finish an invisible enemy already brought down, and it is with exclamations of joy and triumph and glee that they add their voices to the cries of their comrades, who, from behind, catching on to anything they can, try to force themselves forward and throw themselves on the long-awaited victim. From time to time one hears the groans of some man in pain, whose hand is being crushed under the nailed boots of those who are advancing without looking where they are going.