“Then the wound will heal all the more readily.”
“I say, how do you know all this?” said the boy, looking at him curiously.
“By reading.”
“Reading! Ah, I can’t read—not much; only little words. Well, then, if you know that, I have got to lie still, then, till the hole’s grown up. I say, have you got that bullet safe?”
“Oh yes.”
“Don’t you lose it, mind, because I mean to keep that to show people at home. Even if I am a boy I should like people to know that I have been in the wars. So I have got to lie still and get well? Won’t be bad if you could get me a bundle or two of hay and a greatcoat to cover over me. The wind will come down pretty cold from the mountains; but I sha’n’t mind that so long as the bears don’t come too. I shall be all right, so you had better be off and get back to the regiment, and tell them where you have left me. I say, you will get promoted for it.”
“Nonsense, Punch! What for?”
“Sticking to a comrade like this. I have been thinking about it, and I call it fine of you running back to help me, with the Frenchies coming on. Yes, I know. Don’t make faces about it. The colonel will have you made corporal for trying to save me.”
“Of course!” said Pen sarcastically. “Why, I’m not much older than you—the youngest private in the regiment; more likely to be in trouble for not keeping in the ranks, and shirking the enemy’s fire.”
“Don’t you tell me,” said the boy sharply. “I’ll let the colonel and everybody know, if ever I get back to the ranks again.”