“No raw deal at all—the potato was baked,” answered Dave, with a grin, and at this there was another laugh.
A few days later Dave was getting ready to leave the hospital. Once on his feet, his strength had returned rapidly, and he now insisted that he be allowed to return to his command.
“You are certainly a plucky soldier,” remarked the Red Cross nurse who had been taking care of him. “Not many of the boys are as anxious to leave as you are.”
Dave was sitting on a bench waiting for the lorry which was to take him and a number of others back to the front, when an ambulance came up with some wounded. Three were on stretchers, but others were able to get out themselves and walk into the hospital.
“Dave Porter!”
The cry came from one of the soldiers who had descended from the ambulance, a fellow in the regulation khaki and with his left hand done up in a sling. Our hero stared at the new arrival in amazement.
It was Nat Poole!
CHAPTER XII
WHAT NAT POOLE SAID
“Why, Nat Poole! what brings you here?” exclaimed Dave, as he moved forward to meet the young fellow from Crumville. The fact that Nat was in uniform and had his left hand done up in a sling made our hero for the time being forget his antagonism to the slacker who had never been a friend.
“Oh, I got my wrist sprained—I don’t know but that it’s broken,” replied the son of the well-known money lender of Crumville. He turned anything but a pleasant face to Dave. “What are you doing here?”