“Cur yourself, you lying scoundrel!” cried Dickenson.—“Here, orderly, I’ll hold him. Where’s that gag?”
“Oh! Ow!” wailed the corporal. “Here, if you touch me I’ll cry for help.”
“You won’t be able to,” said the orderly, making a pretended rush at the doctor’s chest of hospital requirements.
“Bah! Quiet, orderly. Let the scoundrel alone. He’s off his head and doesn’t know what he’s saying, poor wretch.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the attendant, “the captain don’t; but this chap does. I haven’t seen what I have amongst the sick and wounded without picking up a little, and I say Master Corporal here’s doing a bit o’ sham Abram to keep himself safe.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Dickenson shortly. “You’re getting as bad as the poor fellow himself. The doctor would have seen in a minute.”
“I don’t know, sir,” whispered the attendant, glancing at the corporal, who lay with his eyes half-closed and his ears twitching. “He’s pretty cunning. Had a crack or two with a rifle-stock, I think, but only just so much as would make another man savage. You’ll see; he’ll be sent back into the ranks in a couple of days or so.”
“No, no, orderly,” said Dickenson. “I prefer to believe he’s a bit delirious.”
“Well, sir, I hope he is,” said the man, “for everybody’s sake, including his own. I don’t know, though,” he continued, following the lieutenant outside after the latter had laid his hand upon Roby’s burning forehead, and been called a coward and a cur for his pains; “I’ve got my knife into Master Corporal May for old grudges, and I should rather like Mr Lennox to hear him say what he does about him. Corporal May would get it rather hot.”
“That will do,” said Dickenson; “the man’s in such a state of mental excitement that his captain’s ravings impress him and he thinks it is all true. There, you, as a hospital attendant, must learn to be patient with the poor fellows under your charge.”