“How long will the doctor be?” he said.
“All depen’s whether he’s at home or not. P’raps he’s gone on a twenty mile round.”
“Then we’d better get a door and carry him somewhere,” suggested the policeman.
“Nay, it’s in and out bad enough moving him at all, Joey,” cried Smiler. “I won’t help move him, for it’ll finish him off if we do.”
The constable frowned, hesitated, and finally said:
“Well, as you have sent for the doctor, we’ll wait.”
And they waited for quite two hours before the man who had been again and again sent up to play Sister Anne in the great cowl came down at last to say that he had seen the doctor’s chaise coming along the lane, and five minutes after a keen-looking youngish man entered the great barn-like place, examined his patient at once, asking questions the while, and then with clever hands put a stop to further bleeding, bandaged the wound, and contrived that a little water should trickle between the sufferer’s lips.
“Now then,” said the doctor, “the poor fellow ought to be taken over to Ratcham to the military hospital; but you had better get a door, and we’ll lay him on that and you will carry him to the Seven Steers. It isn’t above a mile, is it?”
“Mile an harf, sir,” said Joe.
“Well, he must be carried there. To-morrow the people at Ratcham will send an ambulance to fetch him. Now, then, a light door.”