“No,” said the boy piteously. “Don’t feel to want them now. The shoot that went through me turned me quite sick. I say, comrade, I sha’n’t want to get up and go on to-morrow. I suppose I must wait another day.”
“Yes, Punch,” said Pen, laying his uninjured hand upon the boy’s forehead, which felt cold and dank with the perspiration produced by the pain.
“But, I say, do have some of these grapes.”
“Yes, if you will,” said Pen, picking up the little bunch that the wounded boy had let fall upon the bed. “Try. They will take off the feeling of sickness. Can you eat some of the bread too?”
“No,” said Punch, shaking his head; but he did, and by degrees the pain died out, and he began to chat about the encounter, and how eager he felt to get out into the open country again.
“I say, comrade,” he said at last, “I never liked to tell you before, but when it’s been dark I have been an awful coward and lain coming out wet with scare, thinking I was going to die and that you would have to scrape a hole for me somewhere and cover me up with stones. I didn’t like to tell you before, because I knew you would laugh at me and tell me it was all nonsense for being such a coward. D’ye see, that bullet made a hole in my back and let all the pluck out of me. But your set-to with that chap seemed to tell me that it hadn’t all gone, for I felt ready for anything again, and that there was nothing the matter with me, only being as weak as a rat.”
“To be sure!” cried Pen, laying his hand upon the boy’s shoulder. “That is all that’s the matter with you. You have got to wait till your strength comes back again, and then, Punch, you and I are going to see if we can’t join the regiment again.”
“That’s right,” cried the boy, with his dull eyes brightening; “and if we don’t find them we will go on our travels till we do. Why, it will be fine, won’t it, as soon as I get over being such a cripple. We shall have ’ventures, sha’n’t we?”
“To be sure,” replied Pen; “and you want to get strong, don’t you?”
“Oh, don’t I just! I should just like to be strong enough to meet that brown Spaniel chap and chuck my cap at him.”