Then his thoughts would wander to the hours when he lay on the ground with the blood dripping from his wound, and with the loaded carbine snatched from a fallen trooper he brought down a tribesman at the enemy's gun. As he fell, another sprang forward—there was another shot and still another as the tribesmen went down before his sure aim. There was but one thought in his brain—to prevent the firing of the gun, the devastation of his men. Difficult and more difficult it grew to lift the weakening arm. He could feel as he tossed on his couch the gurgle of the blood that glued him to the ground. He made an effort to rise to his knees. Another devil was about to load the gun. He must catch this one again—he must. It was his last cartridge. He stretched out his stiffening arm feebly; he tried to pull the trigger, but his strength failed him. Then—one supreme effort, and a report flashed through the air. The rest was a blank, but he had carried the day.
These delirious hours passed and there followed a vague mid-air suspension of existence. Of tangible things he was no part. The years of fighting were forgotten. He was back in the Fairies' Corner with Diana, he saw the giant trees bending and whispering in the starlight. The smell of the damp earth from the sun-hidden enclosure filled the sick-room, and the vibrant, strong, compelling cry of the night-jar echoed in his dreams. Again, he and Diana listened for the flutter of the fairies' wings in the tree-tops. Gradually, even these mists cleared from his brain, and to-day he waited with impatience the surgeon, who was to decide whether he might obtain his leave.
The doctor found him sitting up in bed, his lean hands idly resting on the coverlet.
"Well, doctor," he asked, "what is the verdict? Am I to be allowed to join my regiment?"
The surgeon looked into the brave eyes. Jim was a wraith of the man who had gone into battle. The drawn cheek-bones were like high lights in the sunken face, the gauntness of the body could be discerned under the bedclothes, but the unflinching eyes held the same expression of everlasting courage. The doctor took Jim's long, meagre hand.
"We are done with you, Wynnegate. You fought a bigger battle here on this cot than you did yon day on the Hills, but you've won."
Jim only smiled.
"Your regiment is ordered home within a month, and you must go to your station to join it. Fighting will be a little out of your line for a while. I think you'll find you need England—a summer of sunshine in the open fields. Then come back later to us again." A suspicious moisture clouded his glasses. He was a man many years older than Jim, and he had seen his own boy go down at the head of his troops. Still, with the instinctive loyalty of the Englishman to his country, he concluded, "We need such men as you, my son."
The surgeon moved away. Jim closed his eyes. Presently he looked up.
He saw the long line of wounded men with here and there a wasted, propped-up figure—the quiet nurses passing and repassing. He began to feel the pulsating call of life again. For him the sick-room existence was ended; soon he would be back in the Fairies' Corner; he could hear the flutter of their wings.