Though affairs were arriving at a sorry pass, there were still some wonderful recoveries. For instance, Captain Paley (Rifle Brigade), who was wounded in both hips, was getting on amazingly. Though the leg was badly shattered near the joint of the hip, there was every reason to hope that it might be saved. Captain Mills, too, was mending. To have a bullet pass through the lung and pierce the spinal column is not a common experience, and one that few recover from; yet the doctors gave hopeful reports. They had scarcely thought that Major Hoare would outlive a fractured skull--completely riddled they said it was--yet the Major was expected to be himself again shortly. These were marvellous cases, and probably the wounded owed their curious recovery to the nature of the weapon of offence. Missiles have peculiar characteristics, and differ in their capacity for deadliness. For instance, bullets of the most harmless kind are those having a high velocity, those that hit apex-first and do not "keyhole," and those possessing a hard, smooth sheath with a smooth, rounded surface. After these come missiles of more death-dealing or mutilating nature--the Dum-Dum bullets, with the nickel sheaths around the apex removed in order to expose the lead nucleus, Remington lead or brass bullets, shrapnel bullets, and fragments of shell. Each and all of these things had been endured by one or other of our gallant men during the course of the campaign, and the surgeons were able to make a profound study of causes and effects. One of the heroes of Ladysmith who went near to testing the efficacy of that most deadly thing, the shell, was Archdeacon Barker. With the utmost presence of mind, he picked up a shell in the act of exploding and plumped it into a tub of water, thus saving many lives. Numbers of officers who had been hit by Mausers or Lee-Metfords were now pronounced out of danger, among them Colonel C. E. Beckett (Staff), Major F. Hammersley (Staff), Captain W. B. Silver, Captain M. J. W. Pike, Major H. Mullaly, Lieutenants Crichton, S. C. Maitland, W. W. MacGregor (of the Gordons), and A. A. G. Bond. Captain Lowndes, who was wounded dangerously on Surprise Hill, was picking up wonderfully. Lieutenant Campbell, of the Imperial Light Horse, whose case at first seemed serious, was rapidly gaining ground.