Part 20 (2/2)

The Orderly was, in his way, an artist. He was light-handed, quick, deferential, and soothing--a prince among Orderlies. He produced wonderful t.i.t-bits--amongst other things tinned chicken, sardines, chocolate, and, for the Guardee, stout! Three minutes after the Sister had strictly forbidden him to read, the Orderly smuggled into his hand the Paris _Daily Mail_ of the day before. Von Moltke had been dismissed.

”The first of the great failures,” he said to himself. But the Sister was right; it was too painful to read.

”What are we stopping here for?” the Guardee asked once.

”To unload the dead, sir,” replied the Orderly, with serious suavity.

The journey took over two days. They touched at Versailles and Le Mans, the Advanced Base, swept slowly down the broad valley of the Loire, past the busy town of Nantes, followed by the side of the estuary, oddly mixed up with the s.h.i.+pping, and eventually came to rest in the town of St. Nazaire, at that time the Base of the British Army.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

ST. NAZAIRE

His next home was a comfortable little bed in a white-painted cubicle of a boys' school that had been turned into a Base Hospital. When at length he found himself at rest in his new bed, he sighed with contentment.

Everything was so quiet, and clean, and orderly. After the dirty estaminet, and the feverish hurry of the Clearing Hospital, this was indeed Peace. They gave him real broth to drink and real chicken to eat.

And that night, as he sank almost for the first time into real sleep, he felt that heaven had been achieved.

Life began to creep slowly into his paralysed limbs. With infinite labour he could force his first finger and thumb to meet and separate again. His toes wagged freely. The only fly in the ointment was that the ”stuff they did their dressings with” was of a fiercer nature and hurt more than the previous ones. Also, the dressings became more frequent.

He made great friends with the Doctor and the Sisters. One of them used to talk of an old Major in his Regiment with a tenderness that led him to suspect a veiled romance. He was now growing better daily, and was a.s.sailed with the insatiable hunger that follows fever. No sooner had he bolted down one meal than he counted the hours to the next.

One day they left a meal-tray on his chest, and apparently forgot it. At the end of half-an-hour his patience abandoned him. He deliberately reached out and threw everything upon the floor. The Sister came running up to see what was the matter. He maintained a haughty silence. She picked up the aluminium plates and cups. Her starched dress crinkled.

”Oh, you naughty boy!” she said, smiling entrancingly.

There was nothing for it: he burst out laughing.

Soon afterwards it occurred to him that, as all he had got to do was to lie in bed and wait, this could be done just as easily in a London hospital.

”As soon as you are well enough to travel, you shall go to England. Your case can be better treated there,” the Doctor promised him.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

SOMEWHERE IN MAYFAIR

The speed of the train astounded him. Such tremendous things had happened to him since he had last travelled in an express train. He loved every English field as it pa.s.sed, every hedge and tree.

He was at peace with the world. The only blemish was that the awful war was still dragging on its awful course--still exacting its awful toll.

He was rus.h.i.+ng Londonwards--towards his ”people” and everything he wanted. The pains had gone from his head, except for occasional headaches. And, wonder of wonders, he could move his whole leg and arm!

Contentment stole over him. He was on perfectly good terms with himself and the world in general. Life, after all, was delightful.

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