New and Sad mingled with Curious Experiences.  
At Suez Miles Milton first made acquaintance with the shady side of war.
 
Before the commanding officer, after parade next morning, they received marching orders, and kit-muster followed. In the afternoon the Loch-Ard steamer came in from Suakim, with sick, wounded, and invalids, and a large party was told off to assist in landing them and their baggage. Miles was one of the party. The dock where the vessel lay was three miles off, and the greater part of this distance the invalids were brought by train; but the latter part of the journey had to be done on foot by those who could walk, and on stretchers by those who could not.
 
Oh! it was pitiful to see those battered, sunburnt, bloodless young men, with deep lines of suffering on their faces, aged before their time, and the mere wrecks of what they once were. Men who had gone to that region strong, active, ruddy, enthusiastic, and who, after a few months, returned thus feeble and shattered—some irreparably so; others with perhaps years of joyless life before them; a few with the unmistakable stamp of death already on their brows.
 
There were about forty altogether. Some, as we have said, were carried from the vessel, and not one of the forlorn band could get on without the assistance of their fresh comrades from England.
 
One tall, deep-chested young soldier, who must have been a splendid specimen of manhood when he landed in Egypt, was supported on one side by Miles, and on the other by Stevenson.
 
“Halt a moment,” said the invalid, in a weak voice and with an apologetic smile. “I—I can’t get along quite as fast as I used to.”
 
His trembling legs and bowed back did not require the tongue or the large sunken eyes to confirm that obvious truth.
 
“Poor fellow!” said Miles—with difficulty, owing to the lump in his throat—“you ought to have had a stretcher. Here, sit down a bit on this stone. Have you been wounded?”
 
“Ay,” returned the man with a look of quiet resignation that seemed to have become habitual to him, “I have been wounded, but not by spear or bullet. It’s the climate that has done for me. I used to think that nothing under the sun could quell me, but the Lord has seen fit to bring down my pride in that matter. At the same time, it’s only fair to say that He has also raised me up, and given me greater blessings than He has taken away. They told me in Portsmouth that He would, and it has come true.”
 
“At the Institute?” asked Stevenson, eagerly.
 
“Ay—the Soldiers’ Institute,” answered the invalid.
 
“God bless you!” returned the marine, grasping his hand. “It was there I was brought to God myself. Cheer up, brother! You’ll soon be in hospital, where good food an’ physic an’ nursing will bring you round, may-hap, an’ make you as ship-shape as ever.”
 
“It may be so, if He wills it so,” returned the trooper softly; “but I have a little book called ‘Our Warfare,’ and a letter from the ‘Soldier’s Friend’ in my pocket, which has done me more good than all the hospitals and physic in Egypt can do. Come, let us go on. I’m better now.”
 
Rising and putting a long arm round the shoulders of each of his new friends, the trooper slowly brought up the rear of the touching procession which had already passed them on its way to Suez.
 
In the vessel which had brought those unfortunate men from Suakim, Miles and his comrades soon found themselves advancing down that region of sweltering heat called the Red Sea. The sight of the disabled men had naturally, at first, a depressing effect on the men; but the influence of robust health, youth, strong hope, and that light-hearted courage which makes the British soldier so formidable to his foes, soon restored to most of them their wonted free-and-easy enjoyment of the present and disregard for the future. Even the serving out of cholera-belts and pocket-filters failed to allay their exuberant spirits.
 
The Loch-Ard, although doubtless a good ship for carrying coals, was very ill-suited to convey troops. But in times of war, and in distant lands, sold............