The wattle-blossom’s out again, and do you know it there?”
Margery Ruth Betts.
‟THEY’RE doing quite well,” the doctor said, patting Norah benevolently on the shoulder. He was a plump little man, always busy, always in a hurry; but David Linton and his daughter had been regular visitors to the hospital for some time, and he had a regard for them. (“Sensible people,” he was wont to say, approvingly: “they don’t talk too much to patients, and they don’t fuss!”) Now he knew that war had hit them personally, and he gave them two of his few spare minutes. “They’re tired, of course; and you must expect to see them looking queer. Gas isn’t a beautifier. But they’ll be all right. Don’t stay too long. Don’t talk war, if you can keep them off it. And above all, don’t speak about gas.” He smiled at them both. “Buck them up, Miss Norah—buck them up!” Some one called him hurriedly, and he fled. The khaki ambulances had delivered a heavy load at the hospital that day.
In a little room off a quiet corridor, the scent of golden wattle flung a breath of Australia to greet them, as it had greeted the tired boys when the orderlies had carried them in hours before. Jim and Wally smiled at them from their pillows. No one seemed able to say anything. Afterwards, Norah had a dim idea that she had kissed Wally as well as Jim. It did not appear to matter greatly.
They were white-faced boys, with black shadows under their eyes; but the old merriment was there. A great wave of relief swept over Norah and her father. They had feared they knew not what from this evil choking enemy: it was sudden happiness to see that their boys were not so unlike their old selves.
“We had visions of being up to meet you,” said Jim, keeping a hand on Norah’s, as she perched on his bed. “But the doctor thought otherwise. Doctors are awful tyrants.”
“You had a good crossing?” David Linton found words hard—they stuck in his throat as he looked at his son.
“Oh yes. We didn’t know much about it. The hospital train runs you almost on to the ship, and the orderlies have you in a swinging cot before you know where you are. Same at the other side: those fellows do know their job,” Jim said, admiringly. “Of course, you get a little tired of being handled, towards the finish, and this room—and bed—seemed awfully good.”
“And the wattle was ripping,” said Wally. “However did you manage to get it?”
“It comes from the South of France,” Norah answered. “There’s quite a lot of it in London; only they stare at you if you ask for ‘wattle’, and you have to learn to say ‘mimosa.’ One gets broken into anything. I’ve learned to say ‘field’ quite naturally when I’m talking of a paddock.”