South African Memories: Social, Warlike & Sporting from Diaries Written at the TimeWilson, Sarah Isabella Augusta, Lady
History
South African Memories: Social, Warlike & Sporting from Diaries Written at the Time
Wilson, Sarah Isabella Augusta, Lady
South Africa -- Description and travel; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Personal narratives
The day had fully broken, and never had the roads appeared so white and
wide, the sheltering houses so few and far between. At length we reached
the hospital trench, and the last 500 yards of the journey were
accomplished in perfect safety. My dangerous experiences ended for the
rest of that dreadful day, which I spent in the haven of those walls,
sheltering so much suffering, and that were, alas! by evening crammed to
their fullest capacity. It was a gruesome sight seeing the wounded
brought in, and the blood-stained stretchers carried away empty, when
the occupants had been deposited in the operating-room. Sometimes an
ambulance waggon would arrive with four or five inmates; at others we
descried a stretcher-party moving cautiously across the
recreation-ground towards us with a melancholy load. It is easy to
imagine our feelings of dread and anxiety as we scanned the features of
the new arrivals, never knowing who might be the next. During the
morning three wounded Boers were brought in--the first prisoners
Mafeking could claim; then a native with his arm shattered to the
shoulder. All were skilfully and carefully attended to by the army
surgeon and his staff in a marvellously short space of time, and
comfortably installed in bed. But the Boers begged not to have sheets,
as they had never seen such things before. Among the English casualties,
one case was a very sad one. A young man, named Hazelrigg, of an old
Leicestershire family, was badly shot in the region of the heart when
taking a message to the B.S.A.P. fort, not knowing the Boers were in
possession. Smart and good-looking, he had only just been promoted to
the post of orderly from being a private in the Cape Police, into which
corps he had previously enlisted, having failed in his army examination.
When brought to the hospital, Hazelrigg had nearly bled to death, and
was dreadfully weak, his case being evidently hopeless. I sat with him
several hours, putting eau-de-Cologne on his head and brushing away the
flies. In the evening, just before he passed into unconsciousness, he
repeated more than once: "Tell the Colonel, Lady Sarah, I did my best
to give the message, but they got me first." He died at dawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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