Alamein fiction on battlefield fatigue and casualty evacuation

A scene from Ian Gale's Alamein follows American Field Service ambulance drivers into a badly depleted New Zealand position, where they begin collecting wounded men under fire. The New Zealand captain is so fatigued that he struggles to respond, while the drivers must locate casualties because the unit has not had time to gather them. Two blood-covered stretcher-bearers sit stunned beside a dead soldier before one recovers enough to help with the evacuation. Casualty collection becomes a matter of improvisation amid continuing combat rather than an orderly rear-area process. The scene ties that human cost to the decision to fight a major battle, which commits exhausted troops and medical personnel as well as commanders.