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CHAPTER XI
CAMPS AND CAMP LIFE
S the long, lugubrious lines of stretcher-
bearers with their blood-stained burdens
^ ^ moved along the winding roads and paths
through the fields where the Chinese farmers and
labourers now were busy with their harvest, they
met with other columns. These were the re-
inforcements now beginning to pour in to replace
those carried away sick or wounded, and the
others lying stiff and cold in their shallow graves
all over the country-side. The first batch of re-
inforcements arrived on August 28th, but the bulk
of the new troops, all men of the 2nd reserve,
came in towards the middle of September.
There were about 16,000, all looking fresh and
neat in their new clean uniforms, so different
from the men who had been campaigning and
roughing it for months.
Most of these new troops were infantry. Some
of them marched straight out to the fighting lines
and were incorporated in the decimated ranks,
but most went into camp close to where we had
pitched our tents, and the whole plain in front of
us was soon full of bustling life and gay with
vivid colours ;
with large round white tents for
the officers and long khaki-coloured bivouac
shelters for the soldiers ;
rifles in neat little
pyramids, scarlet blankets taken out for an airing
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