Androvsky nodded and closed his eyes. Bob fell once more to watching the cascades of snowflakes hurled against the pane, thinking over the Russian’s words. Bob did not want to and tried not to believe him, because it meant bad news, uncertainty, the peace delayed. He felt at that moment, with sudden gloom, as Lucy had felt the day she said to Larry, “I thought the war was over. But here it seems to be tailing out in all directions.”
Before he got very far in his troubled reflections the dull report of two pistol shots fired in the snow-storm made him start up to listen.
In a minute another shot followed. It sounded about a hundred yards distant, south of the village. Almost at the same moment half a dozen dough-boys, wrapped to the ears in sheepskin jackets and woolen mufflers, ploughed past the window with rifles in their hands.
“What can it be, Androvsky?” asked Bob, tingling with the helpless longing to get up and see for himself. “Orderly! Greyson!” he called.
But the orderly, usually within easy call, did not answer, and Androvsky could only shake his head, staring at the window. A few hurried footsteps and a murmur of voices disturbed for a moment the hospital silence which then settled down again.
After twenty minutes spent in vainly straining his ears, Bob at last heard quick steps in the corridor. The door opened and the orderly entered, carrying blankets and pillows which he laid down on the empty cot beyond Androvsky’s.
“What is it, Miller? What’s happened?” cried Bob.
The orderly pulled the empty cot around in front of the window as he answered in fragmentary haste, “Man to be brought here, sir. Pretty well chilled through in the snow. Escaped from the Bolshies’ lines.”
He paused, hurrying to prepare the cot, for already slow steps sounded outside and two soldiers entered, carrying a stretcher on which lay a young man, bareheaded, all of his uniform but boots and breeches hidden by his snow-covered sheepskin coat. His arms dangled at his sides, his eyes were closed and his fair hair wet with snow.
“Lay him down gently,” directed Major Greyson, following the bearers to the cot. “Now—easy—that’s it. Pull off his coat, Miller. Move the cot further from the stove—beyond the window.”