In the next bed to Monk lies Gayner, six foot two, of the Expeditionary Force. Wounded at Mons, he was brought home to England, and since then he has made the round of the hospitals. He is a good-looking, sullen man who will not read or write or sew, who will not play draughts or cards or speak to his neighbour. He sits up, attentive, while the ulcers on his leg are being dressed, but if one asks him something of the history of his wound his tone holds such a volume of bitterness and exasperation that one feels that at any moment the locks of his spirit might cease to hold.
" ... ever since Mons, these ulcers, on and off?"
"Yes."
"Oh well, we must cure them now."
Her light tone is what he cannot endure. He does not believe in cure and will not believe in cure. It has become an article of faith: his ulcers will never be cured. He has a silent scorn of hospitals. He can wind a perfect bandage and he knows the rules; beyond that he pays as little attention as possible to what goes on.
When his dressing is over he tilts his thin, intelligent face at the ceiling. "Don't you ever read?" I asked him.
"I haven't the patience," he replied. But he has the patience to lie like that with his thin lips compressed and a frown on his face for hours, for days ... since Mons....
I have come to the conclusion that he has a violent soul, that he dare not talk. It is no life for a man.
I said to Pinker this morning, "I wish you'd hurry up over your bath; I've got to get it scrubbed out by nine."
"Don't you hurry me, nurse," said Pinker, "it's the on'y time I can think, in me bath."