It was a battle-scene in fact, the view one obtains behind the fighting front of an army--a view, up to this day, foreign to Geoff's eyes, save for what he had seen in the course of peace manoeuvres. But this was the real thing. For from the British front, and on beyond it, there came the rattle of rifles, punctuated every now and again by the sharp rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat of machine-guns, and drowned every few seconds by the deeper, hoarser, more venomous bellow of cannon. A shell plumped into the ground almost under Sultan, though the leap that animal gave carried him clear before the resulting explosion. As it was, he and his master were stung by the gravel flung out by the explosive, while a splinter of shell, singing past Geoff's leg, crossed the open space and found a billet in the body of a stretcher-bearer carrying one of the wounded. Crash! Down the man went, and with him his burden, and for a moment or so Geoff watched as a comrade bent over him and examined the wound he had suffered. He saw the tall native lay his brother soldier out straight and stark on the desert, and then, helped by another, seize the stretcher and march on towards the rear of the army. It was just an incident. Those men carrying their stretcher, and assisting their damaged brothers, were doing their duty just as well as, just as unflinchingly as, and in circumstances of equal danger with those armed with rifles in the forefront of the battle. And what a sight it was when Geoff reached the Mahrattas, and came upon the officer he sought, occupying a shallow trench scooped in the sand behind his battalion. "A message, sir," he said, pulling the note out from his belt and presenting it, and then watching the officer as he opened it and read the contents.