The straw was soaked with their blood.

They had been brought in the night before by the stretcher- bearers.

A young surgeon was rearranging their splints and bandages, and redressing their wounds.

They would lie there for another hour or so, and then start for their twenty kilometre drive over shell-ridden roads to one or another of the great hospitals at the base.

While she was there, two more cases were brought in.