At fifty yards or so, on his left hand, Maurice noticed one bearer looking for the wound of a little soldier, from one of whose sleeves a streamlet of blood trickled continuously. This was a case of hæmorrhage, and the man with the red cross having at last found the wound managed to stop the flow of blood by compressing the artery. In this manner the bearers attended to all urgent cases. Whenever there was a fracture they were not only particularly careful how they moved the man, but they fixed and bandaged his damaged limb, so that his condition might not be aggravated by transport. The conveyance of the wounded to the ambulance was indeed the great affair; the bearers supported those who could still walk, and carried others either in their arms like babies or in pick-a-back fashion. At times also, according to the difficulties of the case, two, three, or four of them assembled and formed a seat with their joined hands, or carried the sufferer away in a horizontal position, by his legs and shoulders. To supplement the regulation stretchers, recourse was had to all sorts of ingenious devices; at times a stretcher would be formed by linking a couple of chassepots together with knapsack-straps. And all over the bare plateau which the shells were ploughing the bearers could be seen, now single, now in small parties, gliding along with their burdens, bending their heads, testing the ground with their feet, and displaying prudent but admirable heroism. Whilst Maurice was watching one of them on his right hand, a thin, puny fellow, who, like some toilsome ant burdened with too large a grain of wheat, was staggering along with bended legs, carrying a heavy sergeant whose arms were entwined around his neck, he suddenly saw both men topple over and disappear amid the explosion of a shell. When the smoke had cleared off the sergeant again appeared to view, lying on his back and without any fresh wound, whereas the bearer was stretched beside him with his flank ripped open. And thereupon another bearer came up, another busy ant, who after turning his comrade over and finding him dead, again picked up the wounded sergeant and carried him away. Maurice thereupon remarked to Lapoulle: 'Well, if you like their job better than ours, just go and lend them a hand.' For a moment or so the batteries of St. Menges had been firing their utmost, and the hailstorm of projectiles was becoming more violent. Captain Beaudoin, who was still nervously walking up and down in front of his company, at last ventured to approach the colonel. It was pitiful, said he, that the spirits of the men should be worn out like that, by long hours of idle waiting. 'I have no orders,' stoically repeated the colonel.