Sharing a room with eight people instead of nine shouldn't make a noticeable difference. But it does and we all struggled to settle, our thoughts with the one who is spending this night in the infirmary.

It was just one of those things that would be a mere inconvenience anywhere else. We were on the home stretch of a long march, going down a steep slope laden like camels, when he slipped and twisted his knee. It swelled up almost immediately and we had little beyond pressure bandages and cold water to treat it.

We were about 8 miles from the base, somewhere in the woods with no chance of calling for help. But there were eleven of us and, after all, that's what we'd been training for. To do things as a team. Working together. Not leaving anyone behind.

Of course he asked us to go on without him… blithering idiot. As if that would have helped. And we all told him so. Told him that if he had the courage to stay behind, in pain and alone, then he'd have enough courage to accept our help. That he'd have enough courage to make it home.

I'm not saying that getting home was easy. And, of course, we didn't make time. But we were less than an hour late and we didn't get nearly as much grief for it as we expected, merely a lecture on the importance of keeping to schedules in combat situations. And orders to take our comrade to the infirmary.

His knee wasn't too badly hurt. But he was sick on the way home—from the pain rather than anything else as far as I could tell—and the doctors were worried that he might have a concussion. So instead of us fussing over him, he's got to stay in the infirmary overnight. And we got thrown out at curfew.

Didn't they realise that none of us would get any sleep this way? Or is this just another way to toughen us up?