Tuesday dragged wearily by. He was in low condition, and very, very tired and his head ached violently. Between the flies, the heat and the uncomfortable bed, it was not a happy home; but the kindness of the sisters and the other wounded men who came to him occasionally, went far towards making it all bearable. There were men worse than he in that marquee, men in agony and near to death, with torn, septic wounds, but sticking it out without a word.
Wednesday brought changes. The padre of the hospital ship had cabled to his father in London that he was all right, and what hospital he was going to; and now several people came to see him. Mac told them he would like to go home as soon as he could be sent, as there could be no more campaigning for him and the sooner he was home the better. The M.O. said that a hospital-ship was leaving on the following day and that he would be sent by it. Mac was put in a ward that afternoon. He was brought some clothes for the morning, but, being fed up with bed, unknown to the sister, he donned them straight away and went and sat by the window. He felt very groggy, but getting up and about bucked him up tremendously.
Next morning he took farewell of the sister, and, clad in a Tommy uniform built for some one many sizes smaller, a pair of heavy boots of huge calibre, and a Tommy cap perched on top of his bandages, he walked downstairs with an orderly. But out in the open the sun was too much for him and laid him low, when he was converted into a stretcher-case, and swung away on an ambulance much more comfortable than the one which brought him. Again he was carried across the sun-baked pier, sheltered from the sun and protected from the flies by one of those splendid Alexandrian women, and taken down into a comfortable bunk in the hospital-ship Dongola. Mac found in the adjutant of the ship a friend of bygone days, who placed him in a spare deck cabin, which he found not at all an unpleasant home for the next ten days.
He speedily gained strength at sea, and began to enjoy life a bit more. A fine Australian, who was but slightly wounded, took Mac under his wing, and with ceaseless care and affection walked with him on deck, and in a wonderfully unselfish way did many little things to make time pass quickly for him. A cheery Scottish sister poked her head in occasionally, and came in the evening to do his dressing. The orderly who brought Mac's meals, was an earnest, hardworking man, who had worked once with a missionary among the Eskimos, and who did the work of several lazy orderlies as well as his own. Late in the evening, as a special treat, he brought a gramophone up from below deck, stood it on a chair in the middle of the small cabin, directed the trumpet straight at Mac's head, and set in motion mournful hymn tunes. It was tough going for his aching head; but the earnest orderly was so wrapped up in giving to him what he thought was great pleasure that he had not the heart to stop him. Mac would silence it for a time by encouraging dissertations on Eskimo life, or the future of the Gospel in India. An hour of the gramophone, and it would retire below to end its rasping for the day.
Twelve hot hours were passed in the Grand Harbour of Malta, while thousands of cackling fowls were lowered from the boat deck and sent ashore for men in hospital. The two following days Mac was almost entirely deserted, as a heavy sea sent most of the sisters, orderlies and patients to their bunks. The first night no one came to dress his head; but the second night a quaint rough stoker put in an appearance, and, chatting cheerfully the while, made his head more or less comfortable. No water came for washing, and on two rare occasions a fleeting orderly left a plate of some sort of food or other. He spent those two days in bed, and was thankful when they were over. From then onward the voyage went well, snoozing on deck in a chair, or walking up and down arm and arm with the Australian.
At length, in the keen air of an English autumn morning, Mac stood by the ship's rail as she moved quietly up Southampton Water, to berth in due course alongside a pier and a hospital train. Mac had dreamed that it might be so, though he scarcely dared to hope that it would come true; but the gangway was scarcely down before his father and his sister were on the deck and had him in their arms. In the middle of the afternoon the hospital train stopped at a Surrey station; and before very long he was being undressed, bathed and put to bed. Presently, the sister, the medical officer, his father and his sister withdrew quietly from the bright little room, saying that he must go to sleep after the excitements of the day. And to sleep Mac went, feeling more comfortable and happy than he had been for many a long day.
CHAPTER XXV
HOMEWARD
The tents sway and flap vigorously as gusts of wind tear through the camp, carrying clouds of sand across the island. Through the darkness comes the sound of the lashing of the date palms and the tamarisks as they swing to the gale. Within a straining, war-worn tent, lit by a flickering candle, stuck in a grease-streaked bottle, sit several mounted men of the old Brigade, their faces brown and weather-beaten from long campaigning in the Sinai Desert and amid Palestine hills. The gear and stuff scattered casually about the tent tell it is the abode of an old hand of long service, who worries little about the frills of base and peace-time armies. And there, too, sprawled half-way across a camp bed is Mac. They yarn about old times, Gallipoli days and after, laughing often, though sometimes in affectionate, quieter tones they speak of a fallen comrade. It is midnight, the ill-used candle has not many minutes of life to run, and the desert wind bellows over the camp.
Three and a half years have passed since Mac found himself in the comfortable security of an English hospital—far from unpleasant years, during which the comradeship of his fellow-soldiers, and the kindness of many friends have fully made good the sight Mac lost on the summit of Chanak Bair. He has not lost touch with the men of the Expeditionary Force during their long weary years in France and Palestine, but has worked among them to the best of his limited powers. And now this stormy night in March 1919 finds him again with his old comrades of the Mounted Brigade, who, with a glorious campaign behind them, are resting for a while on an island on Lake Timsah till a transport at Suez is ready for them to embark. Mac has visited old haunts and old friends in Egypt, and to-morrow he, too, goes on board his ship at Suez, bound for home. Again there will be warm sleepy days in the Red Sea, with delicate sunsets and cool nights, a few sunny weeks in the tropics, some heavy weather, no doubt, south of Australia, and then New Zealand.