"COME BACK HERE, MY MAN." Page 180.
"With the mail-carrier this morning, from the agency, sir, and he'd been drinking on the way and got to going harder as soon as he reached the post. The captain ordered him confined and the doctor sent him here. But my orders was——"
"Never mind your orders. What I want to know is, who detailed you, and when were you detailed for hospital duty?"
"The captain sent me over, sir, after Brannan was taken in, and he's been begging like that for a drink for an hour back."
Meantime, with great sobs shaking his form, Brannan lay there saying no articulate word. Miss Loomis gently drew an arm from underneath his head. "Let me have your wrist, Brannan," she gently said. "You know your old nurse of last summer, don't you?" And in another moment her practised touch was on the sufferer's pulse. In silence Davies awaited the result. Her eyes filled with grave anxiety as she counted the feeble fluttering,—a mere shadow of the vigorous throb of a soldier's heart. "This man ought not to be here—neglected," she murmured to Davies. Then, rising, she turned to the attendant. "Go at once to Dr. Burroughs and say that Miss Loomis asks him to come here as quick as he can."
And Private Paine concluded it best to go without further words. The steward, returning to his post, was met at the steps by the young contract surgeon coming over from his corner on the run. A moment more and the two stood in presence of the sufferer and of his nurse. She smiled kindly upon the new-comers. "I sent for you, doctor, because I knew you had not been informed of Brannan's state. His pulse——" and here she lowered her voice so that only Burroughs and Davies could hear,—"is so thin and wiry as to be almost gone. My father would say he needed stimulant at once, and treatment later. See for yourself."
And the daughter of the well-known and beloved old army surgeon knew her ground and never faltered. Burroughs made brief examination and no remonstrance. In another minute the steward was administering brandy and water in a tablespoon while, anxious to re-establish himself, the young doctor was explaining. "I had no previous knowledge of the case," he stammered. "Captain Devers told me of the man's arrival and downfall, and I ordered him into hospital at his request, and,—yes,—I did say no stimulants of any kind. The captain so urged, and of course that would be the customary mode of treatment in most cases, but in a case like this, of course, had I been aware——"
"Oh, certainly," she interposed, with the same gracious smile and manner. "It was because I knew you hadn't been made aware. Now we'll soon be able to make him comfortable, and then when he's on his feet again he can tell us how it all happened." Again her white hand was laid upon the haggard forehead. "Courage, Brannan. Don't worry. We'll get you to sleep presently. Now, doctor, I want to send some medicine and a note to Mrs. Cranston. With your permission I mean to stay here a while."
"I will be your messenger, Miss Loomis," said Davies, "as the attendant doesn't seem to have returned, and then I can let Mrs. Davies know that I shall come here again, myself."
As he sped along the row, note and medicine phial in hand, Davies was surprised to see his captain's storm-door wide open and a light shining through the transom within. A light was moving through the parlor, too, but Davies paid no further heed, left the note and medicine in Mrs. Cranston's hands with brief explanatory word, then hurried back to Boynton's quarters. He had turned down the light when he went out for his walk and had left his wife in the darkness of her room, trying, presumably, to go to sleep. He found the lights turned on again, and Almira, a heavy shawl bundled about her shoulders, sitting with white, scared face, trembling and twitching, at the big coal base-burner in what was called the parlor.