“He doesn't look a very delicate subject, notwithstanding,” said a subaltern, as Classon retired.
“There 's no judging from appearances,” observed Driscoll. “You 'd think me a strong man, but I 'm weak as a child. There's nothing left of me since I had the 'faver,' and I 'll tell you how it happened.”
CHAPTER XXXI. THE CONVENT OF ST. GEORGE
Day broke heavily and dull through the massively barred windows of the Convent of St George, and dimly discovered a vast crowd assembled in the great hall of waiting: officers—sailor and soldier—come to inquire news of wounded comrades, camp-followers, sutlers, surgeons, araba-drivers, Tartar-guides, hospital nurses, newspaper correspondents, Jew money-changers, being only some of the varieties in that great and motley crowd.
Two immense fireplaces threw a ruddy glare over two wide semicircles of human faces before them; but here and there throughout the hall, knots and groups were gathered, engaged in deep and earnest converse. Occasionally, one speaker occupied the attention of a listening group; but, more generally, there was a sort of discussion in which parties suggested this or that explanation, and so supplied some piece of omitted intelligence.
It is to this dropping and broken discourse of one of these small gatherings that I would now draw my reader's attention. The group consisted of nigh a dozen persons, of whom a staff-officer and a naval captain were the principal speakers.
“My own opinion is,” said the former, “that if the personal episodes of this war come ever to be written, they will be found infinitely more strange and interesting than all the great achievements of the campaign. I ask you, for instance, where is there anything like this very case? A wounded soldier, half cut to pieces by the enemy, is carried to the rear to hear that his claim to a peerage has just been established, and that he has only to get well again to enjoy fifteen thousand a year.”
“The way the tidings reach him is yet stranger,” broke in another.
“What is your version of that?”