“You?” I questioned.
She smiled and placed a finger on her lips with the familiar nurse’s gesture.
“Sh ... you must not talk.” She wore the conventional nursing costume in which all women look well. As she turned to busy herself professionally with a tray of medicine bottles a mounting tide of color suffused her cheeks spreading to the ears and neck until they were a rich mahogany. Blessed creature! She too had suffered during her vigil. At the thought I had an absurd vision of one of Giorgione’s red angels bending over me. A weak laugh faltered on my lips. She was at my side in an instant, bottle in hand.
“Time for meddy ... then go bye-bye.”
She poured out a moderate portion of something potent and pre-war. I sank back with a sigh of satisfaction. How good she was to me! and how gentle!... “Meddy” “Bye-bye” “Good-night, Nurse.” I was asleep.
How delightful are convalescent days. The mind is so keen and every stage of improvement brings such a thrill of adventure from the first bit of solid food to sitting up, being read to, talking and the bliss of the first cigarette. Then later came visits from friends, dainties sent in and the gradual putting-together of the past. Flowers, too—a vase of purple bugloss-blossoms from Effendi-Bazam. He too had been struck down and barely rescued just as two Bassikuni were about to carry out their threat of laghouat blida. I wept like a child at his tenderness.
Lord Wimpole’s tent had been turned into a sick room while he occupied mine. I do not think he liked the arrangement but Lady Sarah had taken these matters into her own hands. Little by little the story was told me, of how my men had turned the tide of battle and annihilated all but a handful of Azad’s forces who had fled into the desert. Seeing my grievous state a messenger was sent to Ab-Domen which resulted in the consolidation of the two caravans.
“How fortunate you arrived just when you did!” exclaimed Lady Sarah one evening, clasping her knees in her long bony hands. “Another second would have been too late!”
“Nonsense,” blustered Lord Wimpole pulling his stubby moustache, “we should ’ave stood ’em off. You can’t break a British Square y’know.”