Fix Bay'nets: The Regiment in the Hills

“What, and keep the Colonel waiting?”

“We can go there afterwards,” said Bracy quietly. “Come, Roberts, you can’t hold back now.”

“Not going to, old fellow. There, Doctor, I beg your pardon. I’ll come.”

“Granted, my dear boy,” said the Doctor quietly. “There, Mr Drummond, you’ll have to go alone.”

“Not I,” said the subaltern, smiling. “I’ll come and take my dose with them.”

“Good boy!” said the Doctor, smiling.

“I suppose you have not had your two patients taken to the hospital yet?” said Bracy.

“Then you supposed wrongly, sir. There they are, and as comfortable as can be.”

“That’s capital,” cried Bracy, “for I wanted to come and see that poor fellow Gedge.”

“That fits,” said the Doctor, “for he was asking if you were likely to come to the hospital; but I told him no, for you would be on duty. This way, gentlemen, to my drawing-room, where I am at home night and day, ready to receive my visitors. Now, which of you, I wonder, will be the first to give me a call?”

“Look here, Doctor,” said Roberts, “if you’re going to keep on in this strain I’m off.”

“No, no; don’t go. You must see the place. I’ve a long room, with a small one close by, which I mean to reserve for my better-class patients. – Here, you two,” he said to the injured privates lying upon a couple of charpoys, “I’ve brought you some visitors.”

Sergeant Gee’s wife, whose services had been enlisted as first nurse, rose from her chair, where she was busy with her needle, to curtsey to the visitors; and Gedge uttered a low groan as he caught up the light cotton coverlet and threw it over his head.

“Look at him,” said the Doctor merrily, and he snatched the coverlet back. “Why, you vain peacock of a fellow, who do you think is going to notice the size of your head?”

“I, for one,” said Bracy, smiling. “Why, Gedge, it is nothing like so big as it was.”

The lad looked at him as if he doubted his words.

“Ain’t it, sir? Ain’t it really?”

“Certainly not.”

“Hoo-roar, then! who cares? If it isn’t so big now it’s getting better, ’cos it was getting bigger and bigger last night – warn’t it, sir?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor; “but the night’s rest and the long sleep gave the swelling time to subside.”

“The which, please, sir.”

“The long sleep,” said the Doctor tartly.

“Please, sir, I didn’t get no long sleep.”

“Nonsense, man!”

“Well, you ask him, sir. I never went to sleep – did I, pardner?”

“No,” said his wounded companion. “We was talking all night when we wasn’t saying Hff! or Oh! or Oh dear! or That’s a stinger! – wasn’t we, Gedge, mate?”

“That’s right, pardner. But it don’t matter, sir – do it? – not a bit, as the swelling’s going down?”

“Not a bit,” said Bracy, to whom this question was addressed. “There, we are not going to stay. Make haste, my lad, and get well. I’m glad you are in such good quarters.”

“Thank ye, sir, thank ye. Quarters is all right, sir; but I’d rather be in the ranks. So would he – wouldn’t you, pardner?”

His fellow-sufferer, who looked doubtful at Gedge’s free-and-easy way of talking, glancing the while at the Doctor to see how he would take it, nodded his head and delivered himself of a grunt, as the little party filed out of the long, whitewashed, barn-like room.

“A couple of wonderful escapes,” said the Doctor, “and quite a treat. I’ve had nothing to see to but cases of fever, and lads sick through eating or drinking what they ought not to. But I dare say I shall be busy now.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” said Roberts as they returned to the great court of the large building. “Glad you’ve got such good quarters for your patients.”

“Thanks to you for coming,” replied the Doctor; and the parties separated, Drummond leading his new friends off to introduce them to some of the anxious, careworn ladies who had accompanied their husbands in the regiment, and of the Civil Service, who had come up to Ghittah at a time when a rising of the hill-tribes was not for a moment expected. On his way he turned with a look of disgust to Bracy.

“I say,” he said, “does your Doctor always talk shop like that?”

“Well, not quite, but pretty frequently – eh, Roberts?”

The latter smiled grimly.

“He’s a bit of an enthusiast in his profession, Drummond,” he said. “Very clever man.”

“Oh, is he? Well, I should like him better if he wasn’t quite so much so. Did you see how he looked at me?”

“No.”

“I did. Just as if he was turning me inside out, and I felt as if he were going all over me with one of those penny trumpet things doctors use to listen to you with. I know he came to the conclusion that I was too thin, and that he ought to put me through a course of medicine.”

“Nonsense.”

“Oh, but he did. Thank goodness, though, I don’t belong to your regiment.”

The young men were very warmly welcomed in the officers’ quarters; and it seemed that morning as if their coming had brought sunshine into the dreary place, every worn face beginning to take a more hopeful look.

Drummond took this view at once, as he led the way back into the great court.

“Glad I took you in there,” he said; “they don’t look the same as they did yesterday. Just fancy, you know, the poor things sitting in there all day so as to be out of the reach of flying shots, and wondering whether their husbands will escape unhurt for another day, and whether that will be the last they’ll ever see.”

“Terrible!” said Bracy.

“Yes, isn’t it? Don’t think I shall ever get married, as I’m a soldier; for it doesn’t seem right to bring a poor, tender lady out to such places as this. It gives me the shivers sometimes; but these poor things, they don’t know what it will all be when they marry and come out.”

“And if they did they would come all the same,” said Roberts bluffly.

“Well, it’s quite right,” said Bracy thoughtfully. “It’s splendidly English and plucky for a girl to be willing to share all the troubles her husband goes through.”

“So it is,” said Drummond. “I’ve always admired it when I’ve read of such things; and it makes you feel that heroines are much greater than heroes.”