Being junior member of the Ambulance Staff, I came first on night duty and took my position on a stretcher in the guard-room, where it was all I could do to keep myself awake. My eyes would close in spite of resolution, and I sometimes awoke just in time to escape a reprimand when Dr. Marion Sims came round at midnight to make his inspection. As a veteran in the American War he kept the strictest discipline, and occasionally made our blood run cold by a description of the penalties inflicted during that lively time for the smallest dereliction of duty. However, except that a dozen or so of poor sufferers required morphia to tranquillise them, nothing occurred until the small hours of the morning, when it struck me that some of the _infirmiers_ might be, like myself, inclined to doze. Accordingly, I went round and looked them up. All were stirring, except the infirmarians of wards 2 and 5, who were stretched out, one on a bench, another on the ground, fast asleep. I kicked them up to attention, and left them certainly more frightened than hurt. On my reporting the matter, as I was bound, next morning, the sleepy delinquents were put in the cells for twenty-four hours. Later on, one of them had twice as much punishment for the same offence. Poor fellows, I could not really blame them. A source of disturbance during the night was the droves of loose horses, principally Arabs, that kept neighing and pawing the pavement outside the building, in their endeavour to reach the water which was stored in buckets near the open windows. Every night, as their thirst increased, they became more frantic; and during the daytime they came in dozens, drawn by the scent of water, all the while kicking each other furiously. Some had bridles, some mere fragments of their trappings, and the rest had got quit of all their furniture. It was novel to see these chargers careering about in demi-toilette. In a few days, however, all the wounded animals, now become useless, were shot; the others were brought together--chiefly by the sound of the trumpet, to which they quickly answered--and were picketed in the valley beyond the Meuse and above Donchery.