One of my friends in a neighboring bed says, “Ah, Miss ——, you don’t know Robinson yet, he’s a new fellow, and we all laugh at him here; he says when the pain’s just so bad he can’t bear it nohow, he tries to whistle with all his might, and he finds it does him good.”
Whether from the suspension of this novel remedy for acute suffering, or a sudden increase of pain, I cannot tell; but as I turn to Robinson for a confirmation of this singular statement, the large tears are in his eyes, and roll slowly down his cheeks. He tries to smile, however, and says, “Oh, yes! it does help me wonderfully; it kind of makes me forget the pain, and think I’m at home again, where I’m always whistling. Nothing like keeping up a good heart. It don’t always ache like this—only in spells—it’ll stop after a bit. Never mind me, ma’am, I’m not half so bad as poor Darlington there.”
There seemed to me something touching in the extreme, in this earnest effort to subdue suffering by whistling up the bright memories of home, in the midst of such intense physical anguish, and in the endeavor to treat his own case as lightly as possible. Well has it been said, “Character is seen through small openings;” and as he appeared in this conversation, such did we find him always. Gentle, unselfish, and bearing his terrible suffering with a beautiful patience, ere long he became a general favorite throughout the whole hospital; and during the tedious months of close and constant nursing which his case required, every one seemed glad to help him and wait upon him at all times. But this is anticipating, for no doubt he will appear again, as for a long time he was one of our prime objects of interest, from the constant attention as to diet and delicacies which his case required.
As I pass on from bed to bed, I give rather a scrutinizing glance, in hopes of just seeing the formidable object whom I had been warned to avoid. But in vain. All seem quiet, and since my presence has stopped the whistling, nothing is heard but the men talking in an undertone, or an occasional low moan of pain, which seems to come from some one asleep and suffering. Suddenly, in my tour, I pause before a bed, struck by the expression of intense anguish on a sweet, young face, white as the pillow it rests upon; his fair hair tossed from the pale brow, which is painfully contracted, and his long, thin, taper fingers, white as the face, move convulsively as he sleeps. He is evidently badly wounded, for a hoop raises the clothes from his bandaged limb. Who can he be? Evidently those hands, even allowing for illness and loss of blood, have never seen rough service, and belong to some one of a higher class than we usually see as a Private here; for although we proudly acknowledge that some of the best blood of the country is now in the ranks, still it has not, as yet, been our good fortune to encounter its presence in this hospital. There is a sort of fascination about that face, and I stand gazing at him and wondering over him till Richards, one of our old attachés, comes up.
“Oh! he’s asleep, poor fellow, at last; that accounts for it; the boys are all wondering how you got so close; he’s in a great way, when he’s awake. He couldn’t bear you that near without screaming.”
“Surely this can’t be the man Foster said was ‘as cross as thunder?’” said I, thinking it utterly impossible that here was indeed the dreaded object I had been seeking.
“Well, yes, miss; the boys call him cross, but somehow I don’t think he means to be cross; only, you see he suffers so with that mashed-up limb, that he’s afraid they’ll touch him when they come near, and he calls out sudden like, and so they call him cross; but he’s as grateful as can be, for any little thing you do for him.”
“Is he very badly wounded?”
“Oh! yes. The doctors would have taken his leg right off, but they say he’s too weak to stand it; you never saw such a sight; he and Robinson, there, are an awful pair to look at.”
“Is this Darlington? I heard Robinson say that Darlington was worse than he was.”