"Are we advancing?" "No, but we are holding our ground. It is their machine-guns that are the trouble. They're just awful!" "Are you in pain?" "No!" "What does it feel like, a bullet?" "It burns a bit, but it doesn't hurt much." Some others, wounded in the leg, began to pass by. These were evidently in great pain. They were perspiring with fatigue and heat, for the sun, now in the zenith, was beating straight down in the hollow through which the road wound. Many were helping themselves along by the aid of sticks cut from the hedges. An officer's horse went by, led by a stretcher-bearer and bearing a foot-soldier whose thigh had been broken by a shell. The wounded man was clutching the animal's mane with both hands, his right leg hanging helpless. Just above the knee was a rent in his breeches through which the blood flowed freely, running down to his boot and dripping thence to the ground. His eyes were closed and his bloodshot eyelids, pale lips, and the red beard covering his long, bony jaws, made him look like one crucified. "Can you manage to hold out?" asked the stretcher-bearer. "Are we still far from the ambulance?" "No, not far now. If you feel faint let me know and I'll put you down. Does it hurt much?" "Yes, and it's bleeding.... Look at the blood on the road!" "That's nothing. Hold on to the mane!" An ambulance passed full of seriously wounded. Instead of being laid down they had been propped up against the sides of the carriage so that it should hold more. Under the green tilt I caught a glimpse of one man with a face the colour of white marble whose head was rolling on his shoulders, and of another who was streaming with blood. A huge and swarthy corporal was sharing the box with the driver. His gun between his knees and one hand on his hip, he was sitting bolt upright with a grave and determined air, his head enveloped in a turban of crimson lint. Blood was trickling into his right eye, which, in its red-rimmed orbit, looked strangely white, and from thence ran down his drooping moustache, matting the hairs of his beard, and finally dropping on to his broad chest in black splashes and streams. One of the wounded who had been waiting for a long time, sitting by the roadside, caught hold of a carriage which dragged him on. "Please stop and let me get up!" "We've no more room, I'm afraid!" "I can't walk." "But as you see we're full up!" "Can't I get on the step?" "Yes, if you can manage it!" But the vehicle still went on. A gunner helped the man on to the step.