205“You’ve used up all your questions,” Larkin told him, laughing, “and I’ve used up all my time. I want to be good so that Old Saw Bones will let me see you to-morrow night.”
“Wait,” McGee began, but the nurse interposed herself.
“No more to-night,” she said. “In a day or two you can talk as much as you like.”
The next two or three days passed slowly for McGee. Each night Larkin came back from squadron headquarters in a motor cycle side car, but his stays were so brief that Red had no chance to get any but the most fragmentary news.
As for news from the front, he could drag nothing from the nurses or from Larkin, and when he inquired after members of the squadron Buzz would reply with an evasive, “Oh, they’re all right,” and shift the conversation into the most commonplace channels.
Ten days of this, and the surgeon gave his O.K. to the use of a wheel chair, which was pushed around the grounds by one of the hospital orderlies. The grounds were extremely beautiful, the hospital having been a famous resort hotel before the exigencies of warfare required its conversion into one of the thousands of hospitals scattered throughout France.
Great beech and chestnut trees covered the lawn, and to one side was a miniature lake, centered by a 206sparkling fountain, on whose wind-dimpled surface graceful, proud swans moved with a stately ease that scorned haste or show of effort.
On the second day of exploration in the wheel chair, Larkin came in the afternoon and, relieving the orderly, pushed Red’s chair down to a deep shaded spot by the side of the pond.
“I can’t see why they won’t let me walk around,” McGee complained. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs.”
“No, but they’re not so sure about that head, yet. Another few days and you’ll be running foot races,” Larkin assured him.