Polson, a little strengthened by the food he had taken, managed to roll round upon his shoulder, and looked his late enemy in the face.
‘It’s I,’ he said. ‘Indubitably. And it’s you, to a certainty. Where did you get hit?’
There was so long a silence that each thought that the other had fallen asleep; but when it had endured for perhaps the space of twenty minutes, De Blacquaire began to turn and murmur, and at last his words found an articulate form.
‘I say,’ he began, ‘you there! You! Sergeant! Are you awake?’
‘Wide,’ said Polson.
The man beside him lay with pallid face and big bird-like eyes, staring at the smoked semi-circle on the ceiling, and after the inquiry he had offered and the answer given, there was silence again, whilst a man might have counted twenty.
‘They’ve told me all about it,’ said Major de Blacquaire, ‘and I don’t understand it.
And I want to understand. What in the name of hell did you fetch me out for?’
‘You go to sleep,’ said Polson, ‘and don’t ask ridiculous questions.’
‘I want to know,’ said De Blacquaire.