“Right, sir.—Here, two of you, sling your rifles and dandy-chair your officer to the Colonel’s quarters. Two more of you serve young Moray same way.”
“No,” I said, making an effort. “One man give me his arm, and I’ll try to walk.”
“So will I,” said Denham, making an effort. “That’s right, Val; we won’t go into hospital, only let the doctor stick a bit or two of plaster about our heads for ornament. Now then, give me an arm.”
The result was that we mastered our suffering, and were led by the Sergeant’s patrol to the officers’ rough quarters. The first thing the Colonel did was to summon the doctor, who saw to our injuries, while Denham unburdened himself of our adventures, my head throbbing so that I could not have given a connected narrative had I tried.
Denham protested stoutly afterwards that there was no need for the doctor’s proposal that we should be sent to the hospital to be carried into effect, and appealed to the Colonel.
“Look at us both, sir,” he said. “Don’t you think that after a good night’s sleep we shall both be fit for duty in the morning?”
“Well, Mr Denham, to speak candidly,” was the reply, “you both look as dilapidated as you can possibly be; so you had better obey the doctor’s orders. I give you both up for the present.”
Denham groaned, and I felt very glad when a couple of the Sergeant’s guard clasped wrists to make, me a seat; and as soon as I had passed my arms over their shoulders their officer gave the word, and we were both marched off to the sheltered hospital, where I was soon after plunged in a heavy stupor, full of dreams about falling down black pits, swinging spider-like, at the end of ropes which I somehow spun by drawing long threads of my brains out of a hole in the back of my head, something after the fashion of a silkworm making a cocoon.
Then complete insensibility came on, and I don’t remember anything. But on the day following Denham and I lay pretty close together, talking, and looking up at the sky just above, one of the wagon-tilt curtains being thrown back.