“No,” said the padre, “I couldn’t straighten it out. But I did the best I could. I went to see poor Binny. He was in the mortuary by that time. I found him sitting up in his coffin crying like a child. I comforted him as well as I could.”
“Poor devil,” said Mackintosh. “Not that I believe a word of this story. It couldn’t have happened. But you may as well go on and tell us what you did. Sang hymns to him, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” said the padre. “I got him something to eat and a couple of blankets. That mortuary is a cold place, and, though you mightn’t think it, a coffin is draughty. Next morning I buried him.”
“God bless me!” said the A.P.M. explosively. “Do you mean to say you buried a man you knew to be alive?”
“Couldn’t help it,” said the padre. “It was in orders, matter of discipline, you know. Can’t go back on discipline, can you, Mackintosh? I got through it as quickly as I decently could. Then I let Binny out. The graves in that cemetery are never filled in for an hour or two after the coffins are let down, so I had lots of time. Jolly glad poor Binny was to get out. He said he’d shivered all over when he heard ‘The Last Post.’ I had a suit of clothes for him; of course, civilian clothes.”
The padre filled himself a glass of whisky and soda and lit his pipe. He looked round with a smile of triumph. Most of us applauded him. He deserved it. The story was one of his best imaginative efforts. I suppose the applause encouraged him to go further.
“I’ll give you his address if you like,” he said to the A.P.M. “He’s working on a French farm and quite happy. But I don’t see that you can possibly arrest him without getting the whole medical profession on your back. They said he was dead, you see, and, as Mackintosh will tell you, they never own up to making mistakes.”
IV ~~ THE SECOND BASS
“Be careful, Bates,” said Miss Willmot; “we don’t want your neck broken.”