“No, you won’t,” said the padre. “Excuse my contradicting you, but when you hear the story you’ll see yourself that you can’t arrest the man. Mackintosh here is protecting him.”
“Is it me?” said Mackintosh. “I’d like you to be careful what you’re saying. In my opinion it’s libellous to say that I’m protecting a deserter. I’ll have you court-martialled, Mr. O’Byrne, padre or no padre. I’ll have you court-martialled if you bring any such accusation against me.”
“I don’t mean you personally,” said O’Byrne. “I am taking you as a representative of your profession. The man I am speaking of”—he turned politely to the A.P.M.—“is under the direct protection of the Army Medical. You can’t get at him.”
Mackintosh bristled, to the padre’s great delight Anything in the way of an attack on the medical profession excites Mackintosh fearfully.
“Binny is the man’s name,” said the padre. “17932, Private Alfred Binny. He was in the Wessex, before the hospital people made a deserter of him. I will give you his address if you like, but you’ll not be able to arrest him. If you try you’ll have every doctor in France down on you. They back each other up through anything, don’t they, Mackintosh?”
“I’d like you to understand,” said Mackintosh, “that you can’t be saying things like that with impunity.”
“Get on with the story, padre,” I said, “and don’t exasperate Mackintosh.”
“It was while I was attached to No. 97 General Hospital,” he said. “Know No. 97, Mackintosh? No. That’s a pity. It’s a place which would just suit you. Patients wakened every morning at five to have their faces washed. Discipline polished till you could see your face in it, and so many rules and regulations that you can’t cross a room without tripping over one. The lists and card indexes that are kept going in that place, and the forms that are filled in! You’d glory in it, Mackintosh. But it didn’t suit my temperament.”
“I believe you,” said Mackintosh grimly.
“It was while I was there,” said the padre, “that Biimy came down the line and was admitted to the hospital with a cushy wound in the fleshy part of his arm. He’d have been well in three weeks and back with his battalion in a month, if it hadn’t been for the doctors. It’s entirely owing to them that he’s a deserter now.”