The wounded head stuck to the floor. They scraped round it, digging with
their hands; it came up wearing a crust of powdered lime. A pad and a
bandage. They couldn't do anything more for that ... The third man, with
the fractured shin-bone and the big flesh-wound in his thigh, must have
splints and a dressing.

She wondered how John would set about his work. But his queer, hypnotised
actions were effectual and clean.

Between them they had fixed the tourniquet.

Through all her preoccupation and the quick, dexterous movement of her
hands she could feel her pity tightening her throat: pity that hurt like
love, that was delicious and exquisite like love. Nothing mattered,
nothing existed in her mind but the three wounded men. John didn't
matter. John didn't exist. He was nothing but a pair of hands working
quickly and dexterously with her own.... She looked up. John's mouth kept
its hard, glued look; his eyes were feverish behind a glaze of water, and
red-rimmed.

She thought: It's awful for him. He minds too much. It hurt her to see
how he minded. After all, he did matter. Deep inside her he mattered more
than the wounded men; he mattered more than anything on earth. Only there
wasn't time, there wasn't _time_ to think of him.

She turned to the next man and caught sight of the two machine guns with
their tilted muzzles standing in the corner of the room by the chimney.
They must remember to bring away the guns.

John's hypnotic whisper came again. "You might get those splints,