“Yes, I think it’s a great idea,” Jim said slowly. “Even the little bit of France we had showed us what I told you—that you’ve got to give your mind a spring-cleaning whenever you can, if you want to keep fit. I suppose if people are a bit older they can stick it better—some of them, at least. But when you’re in the line for any time, you sometimes feel you’ve just got to forget things—smells and pain, and—things you see.”
“Well, you’d forget pretty soon at a place like the one you’ve been reading about,” said Wally. “Do you remember, Jim, how old poor old Garrett used to look? He was always cheery and ragging, and all that sort of thing, but often he used to look like his own grandfather, and his eyes gave you the creeps. And he couldn’t sleep.”
“’M!” said Jim. “I remember. If Garrett’s still going, will you have him for your first patient, Nor? What will you call them, by the way—guests? patients? cases?”
“Inmates,” grinned Wally.
“Sounds like a lunatic asylum,” rejoined Jim. “How about lodgers? Or patrons?”
“They’ll be neither, donkey,” said Norah pleasantly. “Just Tired People, I think. Oh, Dad, I want to begin!”
“You shouldn’t call your superiors names, especially when I have more ideas coming to me,” said Jim severely. “Look here—I agree with Dad that you couldn’t have a convalescent home, where you’d need nurses and doctors; but I do think you might ask fellows on final sick-leave, like us—who’d been discharged from hospitals, but were not quite fit yet. Chaps not really needing nursing, but not up to much travelling, or to the racket and fuss of an hotel.”
“Yes,” said Wally. “Or chaps who had lost a limb, and were trying to plan out how they were going to do without it.” His young face looked suddenly grave; Norah remembered a saying of his once before—“I don’t in the least mind getting killed, but I don’t want Fritz to wing me.” She moved a little nearer to him.
“That’s a grand idea—yours too, Jimmy,” she said. “Dad, do you think Sir John would be satisfied?”
“If we can carry out our plan as we hope, I think he would,” Mr. Linton said. “We’ll find difficulties, of course, and make mistakes, but we’ll do our best, Norah. And if we can send back to the Front cheery men, rested and refreshed and keen—well, I think we’ll be doing our bit. And after the War? What then?”