The worst wounded one—there was no pretense about him—had to be carried down the gang-plank. Doc went with him. Good nursing was what he needed; and he was going to see that he got it.
He got it in the port hospital; and then Doc and his two assistants turned in and slept sixteen hours by Doc's illuminated wrist-watch.
After cabling and getting his orders, Doc headed for his base. Their journey back by train and steamer—the two men in dungarees and life-vests, and Doc in sea-boots and one of those sheepskin coats they wear on destroyers—was noteworthy but not seagoing, so it is passed up here.
Doc made his port. We met him in the King's Hotel smoke-room, and he told us all about it. We had had it already from the quartermaster and the hospital steward, but Doc was to have a little touch of his own.
"There she was, a little down by the head, but safe in port," concluded Doc; "and while I was waiting for my orders I had a look around the place. There was a little square there with little cafés all around the square, and I sat in front of one of them and had my coffee."
"So this was France," I kept saying to myself. All my life I had been reading more or less about France, and it used to be a sort of dream to me to be thinking I might some day get there. And there I was—only a little corner of France, but it was France, and a pretty sunny little place after our week to sea.
"And while I sat there people came up and looked me over. I thought it was my needing a shave, but it wasn't. I had my cap on, and by my cap they knew me for the officer of the heroes of the ship. After a while they came up and spoke to me. I didn't get quite what they were all saying, but I was one brave man—we were all brave men, there was no doubt about that part. When they all got through one little girl came up and gave me a bunch of flowers."
He pulled out some kind of a faded flower and sighed. "She was about eight years old."
"No use talking," I said, "it's a great life." And the quartermaster—he stood with his signal-flags sticking out under his armpit—said:
"Yes, sir, a great life if we don't weaken."