“Hear, hear!” rose in chorus, and it seemed to be pretty generally agreed that we should be very glad to get rid of the savage brutes.
I was on my way back to where Smith lay, when I encountered the doctor, who gave me a friendly nod.
“At your service, Mr Herrick,” he said, “when you want me; and, by the way, my lad, your messmate Barkins has got that idea in his head still, about the poisoned blade. Try and laugh him out of it. Thoughts like that hinder progress, and it is all nonsense. His is a good, clean, healthy wound.”
He passed on, looking very business-like, and his dresser followed, while I went on to see Smith.
“Good, clean, healthy wound!” I said to myself; “I believe he takes delight in such things.”
I turned back to look after him, but he was gone.
“Why, he has been to attend to the prisoners,” I thought, and this set me thinking about them. To think about them was to begin wishing to have a look at them, and to begin wishing was with me to walk forward to where they were confined, with a couple of marines on duty with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets.
The men challenged as I marched up.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I only want to have a look at them.”
“Can’t pass, sir, without orders,” said the man.