“Can’t you talk quietly to the chief? There’s he and the major and Edwards take it all as a matter of course. They don’t give poor old Drew the credit for all that he has done since we were here, but believe all the evil. It’s abominable.”
“Esprit de corps, Dickenson, my lad.”
“Yes, that’s all right enough; but they turn silent and cold as soon as the poor fellow’s name is mentioned; while that isn’t the worst of it.”
“What is, then?” said the doctor.
“The men sing the tune their officers have pitched, and that miserable sneak, Corporal May, sings chorus. Oh! it’s bad, sir; bad. Fancy: there was the poor fellow knocked over when trying to save his captain’s life, and the man he helped to save turns upon him like this.”
“Yes, it is bad,” said the doctor; “but, like many more bad things, it dies out.”
“What! the credit of being a coward, doctor? No; it grows. Ur-r-r!” growled the speaker. “I should like to ram all that Corporal May has said down his throat. He’d find it nastier physic than any you ever gave him, doctor. I say, I’m not a vindictive fellow, but when I keep hearing these things about a man I like, it makes me boil. Do you think there’s any chance of the corporal getting worse?”
“No,” said the doctor sternly; “he hasn’t much the matter with him, only a few bruises. But if he did die it would be worse still for poor Lennox.”
“No! How?”
“Because he’d leave the poison behind him. There, I’ll do all I can with the colonel; but all the officers believe Roby, and that Lennox was seized with a fit of panic. There’s only one way for him to clear it away.”