of the Kapanja
Sirt--and saw how the water-course went up and up and in and out, and I
thought if I kept low and crawled round in this ditch I should come out
at last close behind the firing-line, and then I could get in touch with
the trenches. I could hear the machine-gun of the M--'s rattling and
spitting.

I began crawling along the water-course. I had only gone three yards or
so, and turned a bend, when I came suddenly upon two wounded men. Both
quite young--one merely a boy. He had a bad shrapnel wound through his
boot, crushing the toes of his right foot. The other lay groaning upon
his back--with a very bad shrapnel wound in his left arm. The arm was
broken.

The boy sat up and grinned when he saw me.

"What's up?" asked his pal.

"Red Cross man," says the boy; and then: "Any water?"

"Not a drop, mate," said I. "Been wounded long?"

"Since yesterday evening," says the boy.

"Been here all that time?" I asked. (It was now mid-afternoon.)

"Yes: couldn't get away"--and he pointed to his foot.

"'E carn't move--it's 'is arm. We crawled 'ere."

"I'll be back soon with stretchers and bandages," I said, and went
quickly back along the water-course and then past the Engineers.

"Found 'em?" they asked.

"Yes: getting stretchers up now," said I. "Awful stink here! Found any
dead?" I asked.

"Yes, there's one or two round here. We buried one over there yesterday:
'e fell ter bits when we moved 'im."

I went on. Soon I was back in the ditch beside the wounded men. I had
successfully dodged the sniper by following along the bottom of the bed
of the stream. With me I brought two stretcher-squads, and they had a
haversack containing, as I thought, splints and bandages. But when
I opened it, it had only some field dressings in it and some iodine
ampoules.

I soon found that the man's arm was not only septic, but broken and
splintered.

"Got a pair of scissors?" I asked.

One man had a pair of nail-scissors, and with this very awkward
instrument I proceeded to operate. It was a terrible gash. His sleeve
was soaked in blood. I cut it away, and his shirt also.

I broke an iodine phial and poured the yellow chemical into his great
gaping wound. Actually his flesh stunk: it was going bad.

"Is it broke?" he asked.

"Be all right in a few minutes; nothing much." I lied to him.

"Not broke then?"

"Bit bent; be all right."

With the nail-scissors I cut great chunks of his arm out, and all
this flesh