“Tommy!” said Miss Willmot.
“7432! Private Collins, miss, 8th Wessex Borderers.”
He spoke in a tone of hard, cold fury.
“Tommy,” said Miss Willmot.
“Awaiting trial by Field General Court Martial on a charge of deliberately wounding himself in the leg.”
“Tommy,” said Miss Willmot again, “you didn’t do that.”
The boy broke down suddenly. The hardness and the anger vanished.
“Miss Willmot,” he said, “for God’s sake don’t tell Nelly that I’m here.”
“You didn’t do it,” said Miss Willmot.
“Of course I didn’t do it,” he said. “There’s been some infernal blunder. I didn’t know what the damned idiots meant when they put me under arrest I didn’t know what the charge was till they marched me in to the C.O. here. He told me. Oh, the Army’s a nice thing, I can tell you. I was expecting to get my stripe over that raid when I got hit with a bullet in my leg, and here I am charged with a coward’s trick. I suppose they’ll prove it. I suppose they’ve got what they call evidence. I only hope they’ll shoot me quick and have done with it I don’t want to live.”