“Wish I had gone to Capoo,” he muttered. “It couldn't have been worse than this.”
I had finished my writing, and I rose. As I did so Charlie suddenly clapped his hand to his hip.
“I say!” he exclaimed, “I say!”
He looked at me in a stupid way, and then suddenly he tottered towards me, and I caught him.
“Old chap!” he exclaimed thickly, with his face against my shoulder, “I've got it. Take me to number four.”
He had seen by the list that there was a vacant cot in number four.
I carried him there, stumbling as I went, for I was weak from want of sleep.
Elsie had just gone to her room, and Mrs. Martin was getting the vacant bed ready. I was by that bedside all day. All that I knew I did for Charlie Thurkow. I dosed myself with more than one Indian drug to stimulate the brain—to keep myself up to doing and thinking. This was a white man's life, and God forgive me if I set undue store upon it as compared with the black lives we were losing daily. This was a brain that could think for the rest. There was more than one man's life wrapped up in Charlie Thurkow's. One can never tell. My time might come at any moment, and the help we had sent for could not reach us for another fortnight.
Charlie said nothing. He thanked me at intervals for some little service rendered, and nearly all the time his eyes were fixed upon the clock. He was reckoning with his own life. He did not want to die in the day, but in the night. He was deliberately spinning out his life till the night nurse came on duty. I suppose that in his superficial, happy-go-lucky way he loved her.
I pulled him through that day, and we managed to refrain from waking Elsie up. At nightfall she came to her post. When she came into the room I was writing a note to the brigadier. I watched her face as she came towards us. There was only distress upon it—nothing else. Even women—even beautiful women grow callous; thank Heaven! Charlie Thurkow gave a long sigh of relief when she came.