It is a wretched hospital, too, even though it is the best which can be made. Every window has to be bricked in partially; every entrance where bullets might flick in must be closed; and in the heat and dust of a Peking summer the stench is terrible. Worse still are the flies, which, attracted by the newly spilt blood of strong men, swarm so thickly that another torture is added. Half the nationalities of Europe lie groaning together, each calling in his native tongue for water, or for help to loosen a bandage which in the shimmering heat has become unbearable. And as the rifle cracking rises to the storm it always does every few hours, more men will be brought in and laid on that gruesome operating table. The very passageways have been already invaded by men lying on long chairs, because there are no more beds. Even they are happy; they have crept to a place where they can gasp in quiet; that is all they ask for. In a hideous little room at the back the dead are prepared for their last resting place--prepared in a manner which is shocking, but is the best that can be done. I cannot describe it. In the cool of the evening, when perhaps the enemy's fire has slackened a little, and the bullets only sob very faintly overhead, and the shells have ceased their brutal attentions, stretcher parties come quietly and carry out the corpses. That is the worst sight of all. There are no coffins, and the dead, shrouded in white cloth, have sometimes their booted feet pushing through the coarse fabric in which they are sewn. Never shall I forget the sight of one man, a great, long fellow, who seemed immense in his white shroud. A movement of the bearers struggling under his unaccustomed weight burst his winding sheet and his feet shot out as if he were making a last effort to escape from the pitiless grasp of Mother Earth extending her arms towards him in the form of a narrow trench. There was something hideous and terrible in these booted feet. One man, unnerved at the sight, gave a short cry, as if he had been struck. That is the brutal side of life--death. There is also no room and not time to give each one a separate grave, these our dead; and so, strapped to a plank, they are lowered into the ground, a few shovelfuls of earth are hastily dropped in on top, and then another corpse is laid down. Sometimes there are three or four in a single grave, and when the grave is filled up the dead men's order is written on rough crosses. That is all.