The day was fiercely hot and water was scarce, which greatly increased the sufferings of the British troops. The wounded, especially, had to endure terrible agony under the scorching sun, yet the demeanour of the men was above all praise. None complained; few uttered a groan; they faced pain with a heroic stoicism. A man who was shot through the abdomen had a cup of water brought to him by an orderly as he lay writhing with parched mouth. "Take it to my pal first," he said, "he is worse hit than me." It was the spirit of Sir Philip Sidney. A drummer boy of fourteen sat, with his left arm shattered, on the ambulance, eating a biscuit. Admiring his bravery and endurance, an officer went up to him and gave him half-a-crown. "Thank you," said the lad, "but would you mind putting it in my pocket, as I mustn't let go of my biscuit." Thus were the sublime and the ridiculous blended around those sorrowful tents to which the stricken painfully pilgrimaged from all parts of the field. Some limped in as best they could; others were borne on stretchers; all, as they arrived, were given food. [Sidenote: Bravery of the Army Medical Corps.] [Sidenote: [DEC. 15, 1899] Within the tents the surgeons plied their work of merciful cruelty. "Each of the three operating tents," says Sir William McCormac, "contained two operating tables, and as fast as a patient was taken off the table another took his place. Awaiting their turn, the wounded were lying outside in rows, which were being continually augmented by the civilian bearers coming in from the field. As each wounded man reached the hospital he was served with a hot cup of Bovril, large cans of which were boiling outside the tents. The way in which the wounded had been dressed on the field, and each man ticketed with the nature of his wound, his name, and regiment, was excellent, and was very useful for identification. This also saved much time at the field hospitals, because the seriously wounded could be at once discriminated from the more trivial cases.... The praise of the regimental officers and men in respect to the way in which the Royal Army Medical Corps had done their duty under heavy fire was unanimous and unstinted. An officer of the Devons, wounded in the foot, told me that he managed to get to a hut near the bank of the river, which was being used as a dressing station. This hut was continually under heavy fire, and he described the behaviour of the medical officers as magnificent.... The work performed in the operating tents was, in my opinion, of great efficiency, the operations being deliberately carried out with skill and despatch under the very trying circumstances of intense heat, hurry, and excitement all round. The Royal Army Medical Corps officers of these hospitals had started their surgical work about 3 a.m., and when I visited them in the evening they were still hard at it, having had no food meanwhile and no time for rest, and the work went on for hours afterwards.