"Bring me that packet of cotton-wool, the little leather case, all the bandages, and the bottle with the red label, at once. Tell the trooper to fetch the others."
By the time he returned she had the handkerchief the trooper had bound round the old man's leg loosened.
"Open the case and give me the scissors," she said without a trace of excitement or nervousness in her voice.
She slipped a rent in the trouser and held the edges back, revealing a punctured wound out of which a red stream gushed. In a moment she had a wad of cotton-wool rolled and moistened it from the bottle with the red label, placing it with a firm light touch on the wound.
"While I hold this, cut the trouser leg right down," she said, and Harding, his own nerves steadied by the calmness of hers, did as she bid.
The trooper came over with the rest of the articles, and while she watched what Harding was doing she told him, quietly, how to prepare a lotion and bring it to her.
Gale came over as soon as he had secured his horses.
"Will you go down to the men's huts and see if there is a bunk where we can put him?" she said, looking quickly at Gale.
"Why didn't you think of that?" Gale exclaimed as he glanced at the trooper. "You ought to have taken them there at once."
"You had better go too," she added to the trooper. "Bring something back with you, a door or a table or anything that will do to carry him on."