When we returned to Modder River with our carriages ready for a fresh load we found all our troops and guns back again in camp. The trenches, however, were manned, and every one on the alert. The armistice to bury the dead expired on the 13th, and a Boer commando had been sighted to the west. In a brief interval of leisure I took a short stroll, and I noticed how much more plentiful tobacco was now than a month ago when a Mauser rifle was offered for a sixpenny packet of cigarettes. One soldier told me that he had actually paid three shillings for a single cigarette. We loaded up with 120 fresh cases and steamed off for Capetown. The armoured train was moving fitfully about as we left, but the poor thing's energies were rather cramped as the line disappeared about 300 yards north of the station. Just before we crossed the river we saw the two war-balloons floating above the camp, and our cook informed us with a great show of expert knowledge that these balloons were absolutely proof against bullets or even shells, "for," said he, "if anything hits them it rebounds from them like my fist does from this 'ere pillow". A rather similar story was told me by a wounded Highlander. He declared that a pal of his had been struck in the stomach by a shell at the Modder River fight. "Oh," said I, "there wasn't much of your poor friend left, I suppose?" "He wasn't much hurt," was the reply, "though he did spit blood for a few hours." "Great Scot! what became of the shell?" "Oh," said my informant, "I didn't notice, but it must have bounced off Bill's stomach." The soldier quite believed that this marvellous incident had occurred. What had happened was probably this: a shell had passed so close to the man that the concussion of the air had "taken his wind" and ruptured some small blood-vessels. I remember at the capture of Malaxa in Crete that three insurgents were hurled to the ground by the air pressure of a Turkish shell which passed within a yard or two of their heads. Several of our cases on this downward journey were interesting. Corporal Anderson of the Black Watch lay in our ward, struck deaf and dumb from the bursting of a Boer shell, though he was otherwise uninjured by the explosion. Wounds through the intestines were to be found here and there. Such injuries in the larger intestines, if left to themselves and not operated on, have--when inflicted by the humane Mauser bullet--a fairly good chance, and that is all that can be said. One man had been shot through the elbow as he lay at the "present". The bullet had shattered the bone, but there was every prospect of the arm being saved. How different would have been the probable effects, in such a case, of the big Martini bullet!