It was only Smith-Dorrien's brigade marching into Bloemfontein but if it could have passed just as it was, down Piccadilly and the Strand it would have driven London crazy. I got down from the truck which we were unloading and watched them, the ragged bearded fierce-eyed infantry straggling along under their cloud of dust. Who could conceive who has seen the prim soldier of peace that he could as quickly transform himself into this grim virile barbarian. Bulldog faces, hawk faces, hungry wolf faces--every kind of face except a weak one. Here and there a reeking pipe--here and there a man who smiled--but the most have their swarthy faces leaned a little forward, their eyes steadfast, their features impassive but resolute. Baggage waggons were passing, the mules all shin & ribs, with the escort tramping beside the wheels. _A Page of Dr. Conan Doyle's "Copy."_] All who were in Bloemfontein spoke as highly of the Langman Hospital as I have done, and in the same--even in a more ardent manner--had we all praised the Australian Field Hospital, which we got to know before Lord Roberts took command. Especially did we exalt these institutions in our mind, because of the way in which we contrasted them with the outfits of the R.A. Medical Corps. We could not then see why it was that private individuals and colonies should surpass the richest nation on earth in their equipments for the care of the sick and wounded, or why the richest nation on earth should have to rely on these outside establishments, and beg of the Red Cross agents and of the people of South Africa for the means to complete the equipment of her own field hospitals. It is not a pleasant subject. It does not force itself into a book upon "the brighter side of war" by reason of any especial harmony with that title. But it suggests a story which England needs to know--which England must wish to know if she means to keep her place among the fighting powers by the only means by which that status can be maintained--which is the stopping of every source of weakness and the reform of every evil in her army. As I said when I was urged to testify before the Commission which inquired into the subject, I did not study the matter when I was with the army. I was conscious of the general belief that the hospital service did not meet the demands of the situation either after the awful losses at Paardeberg, or, later, when enteric claimed between 5,000 and 7,000 victims at Bloemfontein.