“‘Must’ be damned!” the Colonel spluttered. “Go away. And don’t come back here—to-morrow or ever!”
Doctor Traherne went the length of the hall, and laid his hand on the older man’s arm. “It is positively necessary, sir,” he urged quietly. “I must speak to you now—and alone.”
Colonel Agnew made a sound, a pronounced sound, but it was quite inarticulate.
A tear rolled down to the old khansamah’s white beard, and Private Grainger was praying—praying that he wasn’t going to explode. In the first place, he did not wish to explode, and, in the second place, he intensely wished to live to get back to the canteen, and tell the story. It ought to be worth several pints of Poona best. He had seen “the old man hot in the collar before,” but never as mad as this.
“What’s it about?” the irate Colonel demanded. “You’ll have to wait, I tell you!”
“That’s just what I can’t do, sir,” Doctor Traherne assured him, “and we can’t discuss it here.”
“Discuss! Discuss be blowed!” the Colonel snorted.
“And I can’t tell you here.”
Agnew gave the physician’s face a shrewd, searching glance.
“Cholera worse at Meean Mir?” he said a trifle more quietly. “You’re not going off there, are you? We want to finish those hospital plans, you know.”