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The name drew a laugh of surprise.

"Anything," he laughed back, "that we put up of wood in the war zone is christened 'hut.' Don't know how it started, but it's easy to say, and everybody knows what it means."

He opened a door. The long building, filled with a pallid green light from the curtained windows, stretched away in an interminable vista of suffering Above the beds, set in a double row at right angles to the walls, were arranged odd contrivances of wood, reminiscent of cotton looms. They gave the ward an appearance of a factory whose activity has been suddenly arrested. Then gradually from the mesh of posts and beams drawn faces detached themselves, the stumps of limbs protruded. The faces watched us curiously while the surgeon led us down the aisle, pointing out the elaborate system of weights and pulleys, arranged on the wooden frames to take the strain from injured legs and arms. Some poor devils lay on their backs with both legs and both arms in the slings.

"Several of these frames have been used before," the surgeon said with a little pride. "Others—this one, for instance—have been invented here since the beginning of the war."

He braced his hand against the wood and leant over the patient beneath.