“Poor lad! poor lad!” muttered Captain Murray; and he made a sign to the soldiers not to interfere, as Frank pressed forward to catch his friend’s hand. Then aloud, “Where is the doctor?”
“Here, of course,” said that gentleman sharply from just behind them. “Always am where I’m wanted, eh? Look sharp, and take him to the guardroom.”
“No, no—to my quarters,” said Captain Murray quickly. “Tut—tut—tut! What were they about to let him go?”
In a few minutes the wounded lad was lying on Captain Murray’s bed, with the colonel, Captain Murray, and two or three more of the officers present, and Frank by the bedside, for when the colonel said to the lad, “You had better go,” the doctor interfered, giving Frank a peculiar cock of the eye as he said, “No, don’t send him away; he can help.”
Frank darted a grateful look at the surgeon, and prepared to busy himself in undressing the sufferer.
“No, no; don’t do that now—only worry him. I can see what’s wrong, and get at it.”
The position of the injury was plain enough to see from the blood on the lad’s sleeve, and the doctor did not hesitate for a moment; but, taking out a keen knife from a little case in his pocket, he slit the sleeve from cuff to shoulder, and then served the deeply stained shirt sleeve the same.
“Dangerous?” said the colonel anxiously. “Pooh! no,” said the doctor contemptuously. “Nice clean cut. Just as if it had been done with a knife,” as he examined the boy’s thin, white left arm. “You ought to give that sentry a stripe, colonel, for his clever shooting. Hah! yes, clean cut for two inches, and then buried itself below the skin. Not enough powder, or it would have gone through instead of stopping in here. No need for any probing or searching. Here we are.”
As he spoke he made a slight cut with his keen knife through the white skin, where a little lump of a bluish tint could be seen, pressed with his thumbs on either side, and the bullet came out like a round button through a button-hole, and rolled on to the bed.
“Better save that for him, Gowan,” said the doctor cheerfully. “He’ll like to keep it as a curiosity. Stopped its chance of festering and worrying him and making him feverish. Now we’ll have just a stitch here and a stitch there, and keep the lips of the wound together.”