“I shall limp until the end of the chapter.”
“And you have been at that work ever since?”
“Yes.”
She looked past me over the trees of the Park—as if looking back into a bygone period of her life.
“Will you come and dine to-morrow night?” she said suddenly. “Fred will be... very pleased to see you. And—I want to show you the children.”
The line of carriages moved on slowly towards the Park gate, and left me baring a grizzled old bullet-head in answer to her smile and nod.
As I limped along it all came back to me. A good many years before—in the days when hard work was the salt of life—I was entrusted with my first field hospital. I was sent up to the front by the cleverest surgeon and the poorest organizer that ever served the Queen.
Ah, that WAS a field hospital! My first! We were within earshot of the front—that is to say, we could hear the platoon firing. And when the wounded came in we thought only of patching them up temporarily—sewing, bandaging, and plastering them into travelling order, and sending them down to the headquarters at the coast. It was a weary journey across the desert, and I am afraid a few were buried on the way.
Early one morning, I remember, they brought in Boulson, and I saw at once that he had come to stay. We could not patch him up and send him off. The jolting of the ambulance waggon had done its work, and Boulson was insensible when they laid him on one of the field-cots. He remained insensible while I got his things off. The wound told its own story. He had been at the hand-to-hand work again, and a bayonet never meets a broad-headed spear without trouble coming of it. Boulson meant to get on—consequently I had had him before. I had cut his shirt off him before this, and knew that it was marked “F.L.G.M.,” which does not stand for Boulson.
Boulson's name was not Boulson; but that was not our business at the time. We who patch up Thomas Atkins when he gets hurt in the interests of his Queen and country are never surprised to find that the initials on his underlinen do not tally with those in the regimental books. When the military millennium arrives, and ambulance services are perfect, we shall report things more fully. Something after this style—“Killed: William Jones. Coronet on his razor-case. Linen marked A. de M.F.G.”