live. Better shoot him if we can't shift him----"

"We'll _get_ him all right. This is a Heaven-sent 'problem' and we'll
solve it--and I'll quote it in my 'manual'. Quite war-conditions. Very
badly wounded man--inaccessible position--stretcher-parties all out of
sight--aeroplane can't land for any first-aid nor to pick up the
casualty--_excellent_ problem and demonstration. That oont[28] will
simplify it, though. Look here--I'll drop down and land you by it, and
then come here again and hover. You bring the beast up--you'll be able
to ride most of the way if you zig-zag, and lead him most of the rest.
Then you'll have to carry the casualty to the oont and bring him
down."

The aeroplane swooped down and grounded gently within a hundred yards
of the kneeling camel, who eyed it with the cold and supercilious
disdain of his kind.

"Tell you what," said Colonel Decies, "when I get up there again, have
a good squint and see if you think you can locate the spot for
yourself from below. If you can, I'll come down again and we'll both
go up on the oont. Bring the poor beggar down much better if one of us
can hold him while the other drives the camel. It's no Grand Trunk
Road, by Jove."

"Right-O," acquiesced Captain Digby-Soames. "If I can get a clear
bearing to a point immediately below where you hover, I'll lie flat on
the ground as an affirmative signal. If there's no good landmark I'll
stay perpendicular, what?"

"That's it," said Colonel Decies, and, with a swift run and throbbing
whirr, the aeroplane soared from the ground and rose to where, a
thousand feet from the plain, lay the mangled "problem". As it came to
a halt and hovered[29] (like a gigantic dragon-fly poised on its
invisibly-rapid wings above a pool), the junior officer's practised
eye noted a practicable gully that debouched on a level with, and not
far from, the ledge over which the aeroplane hung, and that a stunted
thorn-tree stood below the shelf and two large cactus bushes on its
immediate left. Having taken careful note of other landmarks and
glanced at the sun, he lay on the ground at full length for a minute
and then arose and approached the camel, who greeted him with a
bubbling snarl. On its great double saddle were a gun-cover and a long
cane, while from it dangled a haversack, camera, cartridge-case,
satchel, canvas water-bag, and a cord-net holdall of odds and ends.

Obviously the "problem's" shikar-camel. Apparently he was out without
an