time and innumerable yards of bandages on him, so that when the
stretcher-bearers brought him into the dressing station there was
little but bandages to be seen of him. The stretcher-bearer delivered a
message from the doctor that there was very little hope, so that
Ruthven for the time being was merely given an injection of morphia and
put aside.

The approaches to the dressing station and the station itself were
under so severe a fire for some hours afterwards that it was impossible
for any ambulance to be brought near it. Such casualties as could walk
back walked, others were carried slowly and painfully to a point which
the ambulances had a fair sporting chance of reaching intact. One way
and another a good many hours passed before Ruthven's turn came to be
removed. The doctor who had bandaged him in the firing-line had by then
returned to the dressing station, mainly because his foot had become
too painful to allow him to use it at all. Merely as an aside, and
although it has nothing to do with Private Ruthven's case, it may be
worth mentioning that the same doctor, having cleaned, sterilized, and
bandaged his wounds, remained in the dressing station for another
twelve hours, doing such work as could be accomplished sitting in a
chair and with one sound and one unsound arm. He saw Private Ruthven
for a moment as he was being started on his journey to the ambulance;
he remembered the case, as indeed everyone who handled or saw that case
remembered it for many days, and, moved by professional interest and
some amazement that the man was still alive, he hobbled from his chair
to look at him. He found Private Ruthven returning his look; for the
passing of time and the excess of pain had by now overcome the effects
of the morphia injection. There was a hauntingly appealing look in the
eyes that looked up at him, and the doctor tried to answer the question
he imagined those eyes would have conveyed.

"I don't know, my boy," he said, "whether you'll pull through, but
we'll do the best we can for you. And now we have you here we'll have
you back in hospital in no time, and there you'll get every chance
there is."

He imagined the question remained in those eyes still unsatisfied, and
that Ruthven gave just the suggestion of a slow head-shake.

"Don't give up, my boy," he said briskly. "We might save you yet. Now
I'm going to take away the pain for you," and he called an orderly to
bring a hypodermic injection. While he