Drew lost all count of time. He seemed to have been on that stretcher, to have been swaying and swinging, bumping down and heaving up, for half a lifetime—no, more, for all his life, because he had no thought for, no interest in anything that had happened in the world before this stretcher period, still less any interest in what might happen after it ended—if ever it did end. Several times he sank into stupor or semi-unconsciousness, through which he was still dimly sensible only of the motions of the stretcher, without any connected thought as to what they meant or how they were caused. Once he awoke from this state to find himself laid on the ground, one of his bearers lying in a huddled heap, the other stooping over him, lifting and hauling at him. Everything faded out again, and in the next conscious period he was moving on jerkily once more, this time with two men in the lead with a stretcher-arm apiece, and one man at the rear end. His first stretcher-bearer they left there, flat and still, sinking gradually in the soft ooze. Again everything faded, and this time he only recovered as he was being lifted out of the stretcher and packed on a flat sideless truck affair with four upright corner posts. Somewhere near, a battery of field guns was banging out a running series of ear-splitting reports—and it was raining softly again—and he was sitting instead of lying. He groped painfully for understanding of it all. “Where am I?” he asked faintly. “You’re all right now, sir,” someone answered him. “You’ll have to sit up a bit, ‘cos we’ve a lot o’ men an’ not much room. But you’re on the light railway, an’ the truck’ll run you the half-mile to the Post in a matter o’ minutes.” “What time is it?” asked Drew. “How’s the show going?” “It’s near two o’clock, sir. An’ we hear all the objectives is taken.” “Near two,” said Drew, and as the truck moved off, “Near two,” he kept repeating and struggling to understand what had happened to time—had started at six ... and it was “near two” ... “near two” ... two o’clock, that was. He couldn’t piece it together, and he gave it up at last and devoted himself to fitting words and music to the rhythm of the grinding, murmuring truck wheels. Six o’clock ... two o’clock. It was little wonder he was puzzled. The attack had started at six. But it had taken the stretcher-bearers five hours to carry him some 400 yards. XXI THE CONQUERORS