If that last sentence conveys to you any picture of two men lifting a stretcher nicely and smoothly and walking off at a gentle and even walk, you must alter the picture in all its details. The ground where the lieutenant had fallen, the ground for many acres round him, was a half-liquefied mass of mud churned up into lumps and hummocks pitted and cratered with shell-holes intersected with rivulets and pools of water. When Drew was lifted on to the stretcher, it sank until the mud oozed out and up from either side and began to slop in over the edges. When the bearers had lifted him on, they moved each to his own end, and they moved one step at a time, floundering and splashing and dragging one foot clear after the other. When they took hold of the stretcher ends and lifted, both staggered to keep their balance on the slippery foothold; and to move forward each had to steady himself on one foot, wrench the other up out of the mud, plunge it forward and into the mud again, grope a minute for secure footing, balance, and proceed to repeat the performance with the other foot. The stretcher lurched and jolted and swayed side to side, backward and forward. The movement at first gave Drew severe stabs of pain, but after a little the pain dulled down into a steady throbbing ache. The bearers had some 400 or 500 yards to go over the ground covered by the advance. After this they would find certain sketchy forms of duck-board walks—if the German shells had not wiped them out—and, farther back, still better and easier methods of progress to the aid post. But first there was this shell-ploughed wilderness to cross. Drew remembered vaguely what a struggle it had been to him to advance that distance on his own feet, and carrying nothing but his own weight and his equipment. It was little wonder the bearers found the same journey a desperate effort with his weight sagging and jolting between them and pressing them down in the mud. In the first five yards the leading bearer slipped, failed to recover his balance, and fell, letting his end down with a jolt and a splash. He rose smothered in a fresh coat of wet mud, full of mingled curses on the mud and apologies to the wounded man. Drew slid off into a half-faint. He woke again slowly, as the bearers worked through a particularly soft patch. The mud was nearly thigh deep, and they were forced to take a step forward, half-lift, half-drag the stretcher on, lay it down while they struggled on another foot or two, turn and haul their load after them. It took them a full hour to move a fair 60 paces.