“We have found,” said the chief surgeon, “that many wounds hitherto regarded as fatal are only so as a consequence of delay in operating upon them. This little hospital unit, which is so complete in equipment that it can do a limited amount of every kind of work that any base hospital can perform, was designed for the express purpose of giving earlier attention to wounds of this kind, principally those of the abdomen. From the first we saved a great number of men who would otherwise never have survived to reach the base hospitals; but even so we found we were still losing many as a consequence of the delay that would often arise in transporting them over some badly exposed bit of road on which it was not deemed safe to risk ambulances or stretcher-bearers. Then we devised a special basket for wounded, to be run on the _teleferica_ (as you see here), with the result that we are now saving practically every man that it is humanly possible to save.” While he was speaking the _teleferica_, which ended beside the tent of the operating theatre, began to click, and presently an oblong box, almost identical in size and shape with a coffin, appeared against the sky-line of the ridge and began gently gliding toward us along the sagging cable. “In that box,” continued the surgeon, “there will be a man whose life depends upon whether or not his wound can be operated upon within an hour or so of the time he received it. He was probably started on his way to us within ten minutes of the time he arrived at the advanced dressing station, and if he was not left lying out too long the chances are we will pull him through. All up the other slope of the ridge he came across ground that is being heavily shelled (as you can see from the smoke and dust that are rising), but that basket is so small a mark that the Austrians might fire all day at it without hitting it. One of them occasionally runs into the ‘pattern’ of a shrapnel burst (with disastrous results, of course), but the only danger worth bothering about is of having the _teleferica_ laid up from a shell on the engine-house or one of the supporting towers. Although the man is probably unconscious he is coming alone, you see. No other life, and not even an ambulance, is risked in bringing him here. Except for the _teleferica_, he could not have been sent over until after dark, and the delay would have been fatal. We estimate that from one to three per cent. of the men wounded on a battlefield which, like this one, lies so exposed that they cannot be sent back at once by stretchers or ambulance, owe their lives directly to the _teleferica_.”