Sister Medoc preceded us into the ward, and Reggy whispered confidentially in my ear:
"Do you know, you can't 'jolly' our trained nurses—they're too clever. Sometimes I think they're scarcely human."
"You're quite right, Reggy," I returned consolingly, "too many are divine."
Reggy looked as if he would have liked to argue the point, but by this time we had reached the bedside of our patient. I addressed a few words to him, but he made no response and returned my look with a fixed and discomfiting stare. I wondered how, if he refused to talk, the nurse could tell he believed himself still in the trenches.
The riddle was shortly solved. Turning on his side and leaning on one elbow, he grasped the bar at the head of the bed and cautiously drew himself up until he could look over the "parapet." He shaded his eyes with one hand and gazed fearfully for a moment or two into the mists of "No Man's Land." Then quickly raising his elbow in an attitude of self-defence, he shrank back, listening intently to some sound we could not hear, and suddenly, with a low cry of alarm, dived beneath the sheets (into the trench) as the imaginary shell went screaming over his head.
As soon as it had passed he was up at the "parapet" again, straining his eyes and ears once more. His nostrils dilated tremulously as his breath came in quick short gasps. His upper lip curled in anger, and in that grim moment of waiting for the German charge, his teeth snapped firmly together and every muscle of his body was tense.
By the strained look in his eyes we knew the enemy was almost upon him—Reggy and I in the forefront. With a wild cry of hate and fury he sprang at us, lunging forward desperately with his bayonet. Reggy backed precipitately against me, but before he had time to speak our assailant, with a shiver of horror, had retreated into his "dug-out."
"Thank the Lord that was only an imaginary bayonet!" Reggy gasped; "I could hear my finish ringing the door bell."
"If we had been real Germans, Reggy," I returned with conviction, "we'd be running yet!"
"Do you think he'll recover?" Reggy asked.