‘Don’t thank me, Raymond. I wouldn’t let you go if I could help it. Far too valuable these hard times.’
The captain of ‘123’ closed the door quietly, and two minutes later was back in the ward room.
‘Carruthers, you worm,’ he said reproachfully, ‘you knew it all the time. Now I’ve got to pay you your price in any case, you usurious Jew.’
‘What is it?’ chipped in Austin. ‘Are you to be keelhauled at dawn?’
‘No fear; re-fit.’
‘What!’
‘Re-fit. R-E-F-I-T. Re-fit.’
Austin sank back in his chair and mopped a fevered brow.
‘He talks of re-fits,’ he babbled incoherently. ‘Here are we working our fingers to the bone and running risks of hideous deaths daily, and the stripling talks of re-fits.’
‘Well, I suppose he’s doing the decent anyway,’ said the practical Johnson, getting up and ringing the bell.