"Are you badly wounded?" I asked him.
"Not verra badly, sir," he returned, as he stood at attention.
"But you have a lot of blood on your tunic," I said, pointing to his right side and hip.
"It's not a' mine, sir," he replied as he grinned from ear to ear—"it's a souvenir from a Bosche, but he did make a sma' hole in ma thigh wi' his bayonet."
"And what happened to him?"
He laughed outright this time. "He's got ma bayonet an' ma rifle too," he cried. "Oh, man, but it was a gran' ficht!"
"Is he dead?" I asked.
"Dead?" he exclaimed. "I hae his top-hat wi' me noo;" and he held up a Prussian helmet to our admiring gaze.
I congratulated him and passed on; but I had little time just then for chatting. All the wounds had to be unbandaged, washed and freshly dressed, and although we worked rapidly, the nurses undoing the bandages and attending to the minor cases, while I did the more serious ones myself, it was broad daylight before we had finished. The morning sun, stealing gently over the trees, found patients and doctors alike ready for a few hours' sleep.
A similar scene had been enacted in every other ward. It was nearly six a.m. as the other officers and myself, with the exception of the unfortunate orderly officer, started down the road toward the villa. Our billet was about a quarter-mile away, but our "mess" was in the hospital building. I crawled into bed at last, very, very weary, and in a few moments was lost to the world.