Whether it were the echo, whether my ears had by this time been utterly deafened and confused I do not know, but now the shock and rumble of the cannon seemed to come directly from under my feet. I felt perhaps as though I were on one of those railways that I have seen in London at a fair when the ground shakes and quivers beneath you. It really would not have surprised me had the earth suddenly yawned and swallowed me. Every plague now beset me. My hand refused to hold the stretcher, my body was wet with perspiration, my face was for some reason covered with mud.... There was a snap and my braces burst. My belt was loose and my trousers, as though they had waited for their opportunity, slipped down over my knees. I felt the cold night wind on my flesh. Neither decency nor comfort mattered to me now--I would have walked gladly naked through the world. The Feldscher was making a grinding noise between his teeth. I was no longer conscious of shell or bullets. I heard no noise. I was aware of neither light nor darkness. I could not have told my name had any one asked me it. I did not recognise trees nor houses, nor was I at all aware that with a muddy face and my trousers down to my knees I was a strange figure. I was aware of one thing only--that I must keep my right hand on the stretcher. My left behaved decently enough, but my right was a rebel. I felt a personal fury against it, as though I said to it: "Ah! but I'll punish you when I get back!" I with all my mental consciousness "willed" it to remain on the handle. It slipped. I drove it back. It slipped further, it was almost gone.... With a supreme effort I drove it back again, "I _will_ fall off," said my hand. "You shall _not_," said I. "I have!" cried my hand triumphantly. "Back!" I swore, driving it. We were now, I believe, both stumbling along, the wounded man pitching from side to side. Of the rest of our journey I have the most confused memory. The firing had no longer any effect upon me. I was thinking of my rebellious hand, my aching heel, and the irritation of my trousers clustered about my legs. "Another step and I shall fall!" I thought.... "I shall sleep." I heard, from a great distance as it seemed, the soldier's "Na ... Na! Na ... na!" I replied to him as a nurse to her child. "Na ... na! Na ... na!" ... Then I heard Nikitin's voice.... Half an hour after my adventure I was watching the dawn flood the sky from the little garden at the back of the cottage. It seemed that those stretchers are really heavy things for any two men to carry.... We had been three hours on our journey!