CHAPTER XVI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST SQUADS
Things became jumbled.
The continual working up to the firing-line and the awful labour of carrying heavy men back to our dressing station: it went on. We got used to being always tired, and having only an hour or two of sleep. It was log-heavy, dreamless sleep... sheer nothingness. Just as tired when you were wakened in the early hours by a sleepy, grumbling guard. And then going round finding the men and wakening them up and getting them on parade. Every day the same... late into the night.
Then came the disappearance of a certain section of our ambulance and the loss of an officer.
This particular young lieutenant was left on Lemnos sick. He really was very sick indeed. He recovered to some extent of the fever, and joined us one day at Suvla. This was in the Old Dry Water-course period, when Hawk and I lived in the bush-grown ditch.
Officers, N.C.O.'s, and men were tired out with overwork. This young officer came up to the Kapanja Sirt to take over the next spell of duty.
I remember him now, pale and sickly, with the fever still hanging on him, and dark, sunken eyes. He spoke in a dull, lifeless way.
“Do you think you'll be all right?” asked the adjutant.
“Yes, I think so,” he answered.
“Well, just stick here and send down the wounded as you find them. Don't go any farther along; it's too dangerous up there—you understand?”