“Don’t talk so, private. Listen. Now, look here, it’s all Duncombe’s fault.”
“That we’re alive?” I said.
“Pooh! Nonsense! It’s that anti-febrile tonic, as he calls it. It’s my firm belief that he hadn’t the right sort of medicine with him, and he has fudged up something to make shift with.”
“What nonsense!” I said.
“It’s a fact, sir, and I’ll prove it. Now then, where are we hurt?”
“Our heads principally, of course.”
“That’s right, my boy. Then oughtn’t he to have given us something that would have gone straight to our heads?”
“I don’t know,” I said wearily.
“Yes, you do, stupid; I’m telling you. He ought to have given us something that affected our heads, instead of which he has given us physic that has gone to our legs. Now, don’t deny it, for I watched you only this morning, and yours doubled up as badly as mine did. You looked just like a young nipper learning to walk.”
I laughed slightly.