The stretcher-bearers carried their burden into the front trench and
there attempted to set about the first bandaging of their casualty. The
job, however, was quite beyond them, but one of them succeeded in
finding a doctor, who in all the uproar of a desperate battle was
playing Mahomet to the mountain of such cases as could not come to him
in the field dressing station. The orderly requested the doctor to come
to the casualty, who was so badly wounded that "he near came to bits
when we lifted him." The doctor, who had several urgent cases within
arm's length of him as he worked at the moment, said that he would come
as soon as he could, and told the orderly in the meantime to go and
bandage any minor wounds his casualty might have. The bearer replied
that there were no minor wounds, that the man was "just nothing but one
big wound all over"; and as for bandaging, that he "might as well try
to do first aid on a pound of meat that had run through a mincing
machine." The doctor at last, hobbling painfully and leaning on the
stretcher-bearer--for he himself had been twice wounded, once in the
foot by a piece of shrapnel, and once through the tip of the shoulder
by a rifle bullet--came to Private Ruthven. He spent a good deal of
time and innumerable yards of bandages on him, so that when the
stretcher-bearers brought him into the dressing station there was
little but bandages to be seen of him.
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