'The fellow's a miracle, from what I can hear. No, he wasn't wounded.
The man who told me about it said that he might have a charmed life.
He's all right, anyhow. Now be quiet, I must be off.'
For the next few days, although, as I was told, I was by no means a bad case, I knew what it was to be a shattered mass of nerves. A man with a limb shot away, or who has had shrapnel or bullets taken from his body, can laugh and be gay,—I have seen that again and again. But one suffering from shell shock goes through agonies untold. I am not going to try to describe it, but I shall never forget what I suffered. As soon as I was fit, I was moved to another hospital nearer the base, and there, as fortune would have it, I met Edgecumbe's colonel. By this time I was able to think coherently, and my spells of nerves were becoming rarer and less violent.
'Yes, my boy, you are a case for home,' said Colonel Gray. 'You are a lucky beggar to get out of it so well. I was talking with your C.O. yesterday; you are going back to England at once. I won't tell you what else he told me about you; your nerves are not strong enough.'
'There's nothing wrong, is there?'
Colonel Gray laughed. 'No, it's all the other way. Don't your ears tingle?'
'Not a tingle,' I said. 'But what about Edgecumbe?'
'He's a friend of yours, isn't he?' asked the colonel.
'Yes,' I replied.
'Who is he?'
'I don't know,—I wish I did.'