'A tent or a cottage what need I fear, He's building a palace for me over there.' "I was unable to get to chat with any of the Salvationists, because if you want to go from one battery to another you have to get permission. But one night I did go and listen outside one of the tents to their singing. It cheered me only to know I was near some of my comrades. I learned that the Salvationists in camp came from various parts of England, some were bandsmen, some local officers, and others soldiers. I didn't hear that any had been wounded beyond myself, although the comrade I heard singing in the ambulance tent was in all probability injured!" But now for the retreat itself! The passage I quote is from the pen of the Rev. Owen Spencer Watkins, as printed in the _Methodist Recorder_. Mr. Watkins had already seen much war service. He was in Crete. He accompanied the British Army to Khartoum and was present at the battle of Omdurman. He went through the South African war and was shut up in Ladysmith during the siege. He knows what campaigning is, and he knows how to describe what he sees. When this war broke out he was attached to the 14th Field Ambulance, in command of which was Lieut.-Colonel G.S. Crawford. The personnel of the ambulance consisted of nine medical officers, one quartermaster, two chaplains--Rev. D.P. Winnifrith (Church of England) and himself (Wesleyan)--and 240 non-commissioned officers and men. His full description of the retreat is as fine a piece of writing as I remember to have seen in connexion with this war. "On we tramped through Maretz, our destination being, we were told, Estrées. Never a halt or a pause, though horses dropped between the shafts, and men sat down exhausted by the roadside. A heavy gun overturned in a ditch, but it was impossible to stay to get it out, so it was rendered useless, and the disconsolate gunners trekked on. When horses could draw their loads no longer, the loads were cast by the roadside; there could be no delay, for the spent and weary infantry were fighting in our rear, and every moment's delay had to be paid for in human lives. "Darkness fell and still we marched--I dozed in the saddle to waken with a start, but still nothing but the creak and rumble of waggons and guns, and the tramp, tramp, tramp of men. I cannot give a connected account of that night--it lives in my memory like an awful but confused nightmare--the overpowering desire for sleep, the weariness and ache of every fibre of one's body, and the thirst. I had forgotten to be hungry, had got past food; but I thirsted as I had only thirsted once before, and that was in the desert near Khartoum.