“How’s Robertson?” I asked at once.
“He died this morning, Bill—three o’clock this morning.”
“Good God,” I said.
“Pretty ghastly, isn’t it? Two officers like that in one night. The C.O. is awfully cut up about it.”
“Robertson dead?” said Davidson.
And so we talked for some minutes. The old doctor was used to these things. He had seen so many officers fall out of line. But to us this was new, and we had not gauged it yet. You might have thought from his quiet jerky sentences that the doctor was almost callous. You would have been wrong.
“Well, I must get on,” he said at last. “So long, Bill. Send that Vermorel sprayer down, will you, and I’ll see to it, and you’ll have it back to-night, probably.”
“Righto.” And the doctor and his orderly disappeared down the Old Kent Road.
Davidson and I talked alone.
“It must be pretty rotten being an M.O.,” he remarked.