Perhaps it is worth while writing a few words about the general method pursued in the collection and treatment of our wounded men.  In a frontal attack upon a position held in force by the enemy, our men advance in “quarter column,” or other close formation, till they get within range of the enemy’s fire.  They then “extend,” i.e., every man takes up his position a few paces away from his neighbour, and in all probability lies or stoops down behind whatever he can find, at the same time keeping up an incessant riflefire on the enemy.  Far behind him, and usually on his right or left, the artillerymen are hard at work sending shell after shell upon the trenches in front.  Every now and then the infantrymen run or crawl forward fifty or sixty yards, and thus gradually forge ahead till within two hundred yards of the enemy, when with loud cheers and fixed bayonets they leap up and rush forward to finish off the fight with cold steel.

Even from this skeleton outline it is easy to see that the wounded in a battle like Belmont and Graspan are all over the place, though the motionless forms grow more numerous the nearer we get to the enemy’s lines.  Now, strictly speaking, stretcher-bearers ought not to move forward to the aid of the wounded during the battle.  The proper period for this work is two hours after the cessation of hostilities.  But in almost every engagement of the present campaign our stretcher-bearers with their officers have gallantly advanced during the progress of the fighting and attended to the wounded under fire.  Such plucky conduct as this merits the warmest praise.  In the non-combatant, who has none of the excitement bred of actual fighting to sustain him, it requires a high decree of courage to kneel or stoop when every one else is lying down, and in this exposed position first to find the tiny bullet puncture, and then bandage the wound satisfactorily.  Many and many a life has been saved by this conduct on the part of our medical staff, for if an important artery is severed by a bullet or shell-splinter a man may easily bleed to death in ten minutes.  I have myself on one occasion in Crete seen jets of blood escaping from the femoral artery of a Turkish soldier, without being able to render him any assistance.  In short, it is believed that quite three-fifths of those who perish on a battle-field die from loss of blood.  In some cases a soldier may, by digital pressure or by improvising a rough tourniquet, check the flow of blood from a wound, but the nervous prostration which accompanies a wound inflicted by a bullet travelling nearly 2,000 feet a second is so great, that most men seriously wounded are physically incapable of rendering such assistance to themselves, even if they understand the elementary amount of anatomy requisite for the treatment.