Where the road from the village is cut through by the trench we came
on a stretcher lying on the floor. On it lay a man, or rather, part of
a man, for both his arms had been blown off near the shoulders. A
waterproof ground sheet, covered with mud lay across him, the two
stumps stuck out towards the stretcher-poles. One was swathed in
bandages, the other had come bare, and a white bone protruded over a
red rag which I took to be a first field dressing. Two men who had
been busy helping the wounded all morning and the night before carried
the stretcher to here, through the tortuous cutting. One had now
dropped out, utterly exhausted. He lay in the trench, covered with
blood from head to foot and gasping. His mate smoked a cigarette
leaning against the revetement.
"Reliefs?" he asked, and we nodded assent. (p. 204)
"These are the devil's own trenches," he said. "The stretcher must be
carried at arms length over the head all the way, even an empty
stretcher cannot be carried through here."
"Can we go out on the road?" asked one of my mates; an Irishman
belonging to another section.
"It'll be a damned sorry road for you if you go out. They're always
shelling it."
"Who is he?" I asked pointing to the figure on the stretcher. He was
unconscious; morphia, that gift of Heaven, had temporarily relieved
him of his pain.
"He's an N.C.O., we found him lying out between the trenches," said
the stretcher-bearer.
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