By reason of what was upon them the clothes burned slowly, sending up a smudge of acrid smoke to mingle with smells of carbolic acid and iodoform, and the scent of boiling food, and of things infinitely less pleasant than these.
Presently a train rolled in and we crossed through the building to the trackside to watch what would follow.

Already we had seen a sufficiency of such trains; we knew before it came what it would be like: In front the dumpy locomotive, with a soldier engineer in the cab; then two or three box cars of prisoners, with the doors locked and armed guards riding upon the roofs; then two or three shabby, misused passenger coaches, containing injured officers and sometimes injured common soldiers, too; and then, stretching off down the rails, a long string of box cars, each of which would be bedded with straw and would contain for furniture a few rough wooden benches ranging from side to side.

And each car would contain ten or fifteen or twenty, or even a greater number, of sick and crippled men.
Those who could sit were upon the hard benches, elbow to elbow, packed snugly in.

Those who were too weak to sit sprawled upon the straw and often had barely room in which to turn over, so closely were they bestowed.

It had been days since they had started back from the field hospitals where they had had their first-aid treatment.