“Let me see,” said the surgeon.
The doctor opened Tom’s coat, and his gray shirt was found to be saturated with blood.
“That’s a worse wound than Pemberton’s. Didn’t you know it, Tom?”
“Well, of course I knew it; but I didn’t think it was any thing,” replied Tom, apologetically. “I knew it wouldn’t do to drop down, or we should all be in Dixie in half an hour.”
“You are my man for the present,” said the doctor, as he proceeded to a further examination of the wound.
Tom was hit in the side by one of the pistol bullets. As I have not the surgeon’s report of the case, I cannot give a minute description of it; but he comforted Hapgood and the captain with the assurance that, though severe, it was not a dangerous wound.
“Tom Somers, there’s a sergeant’s warrant in Company K for one of you three men,” said Captain Benson, when the patient was comfortably settled upon his camp bed. “The colonel told me to give him the name of the most deserving man in my company.”
“Give it to Tom,” said Hapgood, promptly. “He led off in this matter, and ef’t hadn’t been for him, we should all have been on t’other side of the river, and p’raps on t’other side of Jordan, afore this time. And then, to think that the poor fellow stood by, and handled the boat like a commodore, when the life-blood was runnin’ out of him all the time! It belongs to Tom.”
“Give it to Tom,” added Fred, who lay near the patient.
“No, Captain Benson,” interposed Tom, faintly. “Hapgood is an old soldier, and deserves it more than I do. Give it to him, and I shall be better satisfied than if you give it to me.”