"Contemptible" Part 19

"Just a little water! Just a drop. I won't swallow it. I won't! I swear before Heaven I won't! Just a teaspoonful! Please!... Oh! I'm dying of thirst.... Only a drop.... I won't swallow it this time.... There's five pounds in my pocket." He would gurgle and groan pitifully for a moment.

Then in a voice, astoundingly loud, but thick with blood, he would shout, quaveringly: "Orderly, blast you, you ----, give me some water, or I'll--"

Sad to say, there came a time when the Subaltern could bear it no longer. His own troubles and the entreaties of the other unnerved him.

"Give him water! Chuck it at him! In a bucket!" he shouted in a frenzy.

"Let the poor wretch die happy, anyway."

The Corporal in charge came over to him.

"You might get me some milk, Corporal," he said.

"For you, sir?"

"Oh no! You ----, to water the plants with, of course!"

"I was only asking, sir."

"All right, Corp'ral. Can't you see I'm a little upset this morning?"

They carried him on to the Clearing Hospital in a motor Ambulance, and deposited him in the hall of a little estaminet that had been turned into an Officer's Hospital.

A Doctor and Sister were conversing in low tones outside a closed door.

"I'm afraid there are all the symptoms of enteric," she was saying.

Neither of them took the slightest notice of him. But he was getting used to being carried about and never spoken to, like a piece of furniture. And the Sister entranced him. The Clearing Hospitals were the nearest places to the fighting-line that women could aspire to. He had not seen an English lady since leaving England. And her waist pleased him. Such few French peasant women had any waists at all. And her voice was higher-pitched; more intellectual, if less poetic.

When the two of them had quite finished discussing their "case" she called for an Orderly, and without so much as looking at him, said, "Put that one in there," indicating another door. Another Orderly was fetched, and the painful business of hauling him off the stretcher on to a bed began once more.

The novelty of his surroundings occupied his mind. The bed was soft, and his spine ceased to ache. A feeling almost akin to contentment stole over him, as they left him in the clean, cool bed. His companion without the throat had been put in another room. There was only one more bed in this one, and the occupant was sleeping peacefully.

About four o'clock in the afternoon he heard the faint ring of spurred boots in the hall.

"This is an Officer's Ward, sir," a voice was saying.

The Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, followed by another Officer only less distinguished than himself, came slowly in.

"Poor boys!" he said. "How are you getting on?"

"All right, thank you, sir," he answered, smiling with pride.

"Here's the latest news from England," added the great man, as he dropped a paper on the bed. The Subaltern's left hand almost shot out of bed to grasp it. He looked up just in time to see them disappearing through the doorway.

He tried to read the paper, but the effort brought the very worst pains back again to his head, so he concealed it under the coverlet of the bed. He was determined to keep that paper. It was already growing dark, when the young Doctor of the Ward came to his bedside, smiling.

"We are going to operate on you at eight o'clock," he said. "It will be all right. We'll soon put you straight."

"Straight?" he echoed. "Yes, I dare say you will!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

OPERATION

The news came as a distinct shock to him. He had not even entertained the possibility of undergoing an operation. Years ago he had had his adenoids removed, and the memory was by no means pleasant. All along he had told himself he would recover in time--that was all he wanted. To have an operation was, he thought, to run another and unnecessary risk.

Later in the evening the Sister came in with a large phial, and injected the contents into his arm.

"Morphine," she explained.

In a moment or so he felt that he did not care what happened. The morphine made him gloriously drunk.

"Sister," he confided. "I'm drunk. It isn't fair to go and kill a fellow when he's drunk, you know. It isn't playing the game. You ought to suspend hostilities till I'm sober!"

He felt ridiculously proud of himself for these inanities.

"I know you," he strutted with laughter. "After it's all over, you'll write home to my people and say, 'The operation was successfully performed, but the patient died soon afterwards!'"

By this time they had stripped him of all but his s.h.i.+rt.

"Where's my bier? Where's my bier? Is a gentleman to be kept waiting all night for his bier?" he exclaimed, with mock impatience.

They lifted him on to a stretcher, and began to push it through the open window into the street.

"Farewell, Ophelia!" he cried to the Sister, as his head disappeared.

He was too drunk to feel afraid.

They carried him into the room that had been turned into a theatre. He found that the same young Doctor was to operate on him. He was alarmed at his youth.

"I like a fellow to have white hair if he's to operate on me," he said to himself.

Another Doctor began to adjust the ether apparatus.

"Look here," he mumbled, "how do you know my heart's strong enough for this sort of thing?"

"Don't be a fool; it's your only chance."

"Oh, all right. Have it your own way, only don't say I did not warn you!" he replied.

"Rather a character," said one of the Doctors, as he placed the sodden wool firmly over his nose and mouth.

"Yes," replied the Sister; "he said just now that the operation would be unsuccessful and that he would die!"