midnight
The weather was bitterly cold ; the men , apart from this , were unfit for so long a journey and should have been attended to promptly at their own headquarters . To make matters worse , one of the wagons had been overturned six miles back on the frozen road , and the assistant-surgeon who , owing to the seriousness of the business , had been sent down in attendance , lost his balance completely . Three of the poor fellows had succumbed as they lay , of cold , wounds and exhaustion , and a dozen others were in desperate case . Our surgeons went to work at once , and until midnight I attended on them , preparing the lint , washing the blood-stained instruments , changing the water in the pails , and performing other necessary but more gruesome tasks which I need not particularise . At midnight the young cavalry surgeon , who had been freely dosed with brandy , professed himself ready to take over the minor casualties . The two hospital surgeons , by this time worn out , accepted the offer and withdrew . No one thought of me .