“Now I am much more comfortable,” he said, making matters worse than ever.
“But how on earth have you managed?” she whispered. “Your poor arm. . . . I’ve neglected you shockingly.”
All at once she became maternal and practical. It was not very difficult for her. For the greater part of her life she had been looking after helpless male creatures: first her old father and then James. Now she would not be denied.
“Where is the arm broken?” she asked.
It was nothing, he said, only a smashed collar-bone. It had been broken before. “Only, you see, I must keep the upper arm close to the side. It acts as a sort of splint. In a fortnight it will be sound. I know all about this sort of thing. I have to.”
“I’m going to wash you, anyway,” she said.
I do not suppose such a thing as this had ever happened to Hare in all his life; but now he was too helpless and the idea too reasonable for him to protest. To Eva the business came quite naturally. Very tenderly she disentangled the dirty shirt of khaki drill from his left shoulder, slipping the sleeve over the poor pointed stump of what had once been one of the wiriest arms in Africa. It was a painful process to her; all the time she felt that she was hurting him; but he smiled up at her with a look of confidence and shyness which one might more easily have seen on the face of a child than of this old hunter.
The shirt was dirty . . . horribly dirty; but he made no apologies which might have embarrassed them both. The injured shoulder was more difficult. Pain twisted his lips into a sort of smile. “Easy . . . if you don’t mind,” he said.
“If you wouldn’t mind my slitting up the sleeve,” she suggested.
“No . . . that wouldn’t do. It’s my only shirt. It’s only dirty because of this accident. I generally wash it every few days.”