Chapter Fourteen.
The Uncomfortable Symptoms.
Captain Roberts intended to go and sit with his friend for an hour or two next day, but he was called off on duty, and Drummond seized the opportunity to pay a visit. He was met at the door by Mrs Gee, who looked at him sourly as she passed, for she had just been summoned by one of Doctor Morton’s ambulance men to go and attend to one of the men who had been taken worse.
“How do, nurse?” said Drummond. “Just going in to see your patient.”
“Then you must not stay long, sir. Ten minutes will be plenty of time. Mr Bracy can’t get well if he is so bothered with visitors.”
“Oh, I won’t bother him, nurse; only cheer him up a bit.”
The woman frowned and hurried away, leaving the course open, and Drummond went straight on, thinking aloud.
“Glad my arm’s not worse,” he said, as he nursed it gently, “for I shouldn’t like to be under her ladyship’s thumb. She ought to be called to order. Talk about a hen that can crow; she’s nothing to my lady here. I wonder Bracy stands it. Hullo! what’s the matter?”
Loud voices came from the door of Bracy’s room—those of the latter and Gedge; and upon hurrying in the young subaltern was astounded to find, as it seemed to him, Private Gedge with one knee upon the edge of the charpoy, bending over the patient, holding him down by the arm, which was pressed across his chest close up to the throat.
“Here! Hi! Hullo here!” cried Drummond. “What’s the meaning of this, sir?”