Margaret rose to her feet, and shook her head. "I'll tell you some day, Derek, perhaps. Not just now. I must be getting back to the hospital."
"Will you come out and have tea with me to-morrow?" For a few moments she looked at him as if undecided, and then suddenly she seemed to make up her mind.
"All right," she said with a smile. "I'll come, I want to deal with this jaundice of yours. One must live up to a professional reputation."
CHAPTER II
A hospital is much the same anywhere, and number 13 General at Etaples was no exception. On each side of the big marquee ran a row of beds in perfect dressing. The sheets were turned down on the design so ably portrayed in the War Office Sealed Pattern X.B.451.—"Method of turning down sheets on Beds Hospital." On "Beds Barrack" the method is slightly different and is just as ably shown on Sealed pattern X.B.452. During moments of intense depression one is apt to fear the war-winning properties of X.B.451 and 452 have not been sufficiently appreciated by an unintelligent public.
The period of strain incurred on entrance was over as far as Vane was concerned. For the sixth time since leaving his battalion he had, in a confidential aside, informed a minion of the B.A.M.O. that he was a Wee Free Presbyterian Congregationalist; and for the sixth time the worthy recipient of this news had retired to consult War Office Sealed List of Religions A.F.31 to find out if he was entitled to be anything of the sort. In each case the answer had been in the negative, and Vane had been entered as "Other Denominations" and regarded with suspicion. One stout sergeant had even gone so far as to attempt to convert him to Unitarianism; another showed him the list, and asked him to take his choice.
In the bed next to him was a young Gunner subaltern, with most of his right leg shot away, and they talked spasmodically, in the intervals of trying to read month old magazines.
"Wonderful sight," remarked the Gunner, interrupted for a moment in his story by the eternal thermometer. "Firing at 'em over open sights: shrapnel set at 0. Seemed to cut lanes through 'em; though, God be praised, they came on for a bit, and didn't spoil our shooting."
Vane, sucking a thermometer under his tongue, nodded sympathetically.
"A bit better than sitting in a bally O.P. watchin' other fellows poop at the mud."