"Well, it's good-by to the war for you, old man."
He knew that he was aware—and somehow for some time had been aware—that he was in a cot in a ship. He said, "I got knocked out, didn't I?"
... Some one was telling him some interminable story about some one being wounded in the shoulder and in the knee. He said, and his voice appeared to him to be all jumbled up and thick, "Well, I don't care a damn."
... Some one laughed.
Years—or minutes—after this he was talking to a nurse. He said, "What did some one say to me about it being good-by to the war for me?"
The nurse smiled. "Well, poor thing, you've got it rather badly in the knee, you know."
He puzzled over this. Presently he said, "Where are we?"
The nurse bent across the cot and peered through the port; then beamed down on him:
"England!"
She said, "Aren't you glad? What's the matter?"