Part 3 (2/2)

Out in the corridor ca metal Two areant

The sergeant paused and looked uncertainly this way and that, and then at uessed their destination ”In there,” I nodded, pointing through a closed glass door, and the sergeant marched his ht back under arrest; I had seen him pass with his escort The rumour at tea had been that he had extended his two days' leave into three weeks

The VAD looked at ly but she didn't dare, and I couldn't bear, to start any elucidations on the subject

I couldn't think; she worried me Her odds and ends of conversation pecked at me like a small bird She told me a riddle which filled me with nausea, and finally a limerick which I had heard three times in the Mess

I left her and went into the bunk

Here the new Sister had installed herself, gentle and pink and full of quiet ainst the -pane, and I lifted the blind to watch the flakes stick and lass

The VAD, her trays finished, appeared in the doorway The little room see at the VAD with distaste

She looked at ?”

”No,” I said, ”I've a note to write,” forgetting that the new Sister n

The VAD gave in and disappeared concertwards

The Sister rose too and went out into the kitchen to consult with the _chef_

I slipped out behind her and down the steps into the garden--into the wet, dark garden, down the channels that were garden-paths, and felt my way over to the Sisters' quarters

My Sister hadn't as-fire, her thin hand to her face, she sat as she had two hours before

”Come in,” she offered, ”and talk to me”

Her collar, which was open, she tried to do up It made a painful impression on me of weakness and the effort to be normal

I remembered that she had once told uessed that she was suffering now from that terror

But when the specialist is afraid, what can ignorance say?

Life in the bunk is wretched (except that the new VAD tells fortunes by hands)

The new Sister is at the sa look and gives ht I ht stave it off by playfulness

Pain

To stand up straight on one's feet, strong, easy, without the surging of any physical sensation, by a bedside whose coverings are flung here and there by the quivering nerves beneath itthere is a sort of shath

”What can I do for you?” my eyes cry dumbly into his clouded brown pupils