"Have you any friends to whom you wish to send a message?" I asked him gently.
"Why, doctor," he enquired, with a keenness of perception that was embarrassing, and looking up at me with a glance of slight surprise, "do you think I am going to die?"
"You are very ill indeed," I replied hesitatingly, "and I think it would be well, if there is some one in whom you are specially interested, that you should write at once."
He smiled faintly again as he looked me in the eye and answered: "There is only one person in the world who concerns me deeply—my mother;" he turned his head away an instant, "I have already written her. How long do you think I have to live?"
Even when one can answer, this is always the most awkward question in the world. No one ever gets accustomed to pronouncing a death sentence. I shook my head sadly and replied: "I cannot tell you positively—but I fear you have only a few hours more."
"Well, well," he said somewhat indifferently, and then his voice became more interested. He turned back and asked suddenly: "By the way, will you grant me a favour?"
I assured him I would do anything in my power; but I was totally unprepared for his request. He spoke eagerly:
"Then, may I have a bowl of rice pudding?"
His sang-froid startled me beyond speech. Death to him was a matter of small moment—but hunger was serious. We got him his pudding. He ate it with relish, and two hours later, with a cigarette between his lips, his brave eyes closed forever.
There was a bustle in the hospital that afternoon. We had orders to send two hundred patients to England. The boys were in a state of happy excitement; those who could walk hurrying down to the pack-stores and returning with all sorts of wrinkled tunics and breeches, and with old boots and caps. Sometimes an Irishman secured a kilt, and a "kiltie," much to his annoyance, was obliged to wear breeches. For when men from hospital were returning to England, although all their clothes were sterilised, no special effort was made in those days to return them their own. New clothes were issued at home. Those patients who were unable to get up were dressed in bed, their heads were encased in woollen toques, big thick bed-socks were drawn over their feet to keep them warm, and they were rolled in blankets and placed in the hall on stretchers, ready to depart.