Our Orderly's Blighted Heart.
Friday. Yesterday was unfortunately the day of Valentine the Saint. I say "unfortunately" for this reason: I was just about to continue this letter, when our day orderly came in, and taking advantage of my sympathetic and credulous nature, after boldly reminding me that it was St. Valentine's Day, told me that he had only loved once and never would again.
In this respect he differs considerably from the majority of orderlies. He then comfortably arranged himself on a vacant bed, and unsolicited, with a smiling face, told me the romantic story of his blighted affection. As it may interest you, I will give you a condensed version of the same. Would to Heaven he had so dealt with me. But I was born to suffer, and was I not in hospital? As a coster lad he went with a young woman who loved him. He also loved her. Her name was Olivia. She went upon the "styge," and loved him still. Then an old nobleman (Sir ——) fell in love with her, followed her persistently, and wooed her through her parents. He was rich but honest, and it was a case of December and April, for she was all showers—of tears. At last, against her heart's dictates, she married him and became an old man's pet—nuisance, I should imagine, and my orderly friend became a soldier. Alas for the trio, she could not forget her old, I mean young, love, and eventually blew her brains out in Paris. They spattered the ceiling and ruined the carpet—I forgot the rest, (there was a lovely account of it in the People), for over-taxed nature could stand no more, and I fell asleep dreaming of reporters wading ankle-deep in blood in a Louis Quatorze drawing-room, taking notes of a terrible tragedy in high life, and was horrified to hear a loud report, followed by a gurgling sound, and, opening my eyes, beheld—Mr. Orderly holding one of my bottles of stout upside down to his lips, and in his other hand my corkscrew with a cork on the end of it.
Private McLaughlan, of the Inniskillings, having heard of this, informed me that he "jined th' Army" because his father would not let him keep five racehorses; and Private Hewitt, of the 12th M.I., gave his reason as being his refusal to marry a heiress. After this our orderly ceased from troubling—for a time.
Amongst the many sad cases I have come across, here is one which strikes me as being particularly pitiable. A poor fellow of the 2nd Lincolns is the patient I am thinking about. He is deaf, deaf as a stone wall, is sickening for enteric, cannot read, and is at times delirious. The tent the poor fellow is in is not a very good one, and he seems quite friendless. There he lies in his bed, never uttering a word or hearing one, and as helpless as a child. Some mornings back I saw him eating his porridge with his fingers, the man who had handed it to him having forgotten to give him a spoon. His utter loneliness seems too awful. I wonder what his poor mind thinks about. When told that he would probably be sent home, he said he did not want to go. Surely somewhere in God's sweet world there is somebody who cares for and thinks about him. I cannot half express to you the sadness of his solitude.[Back to Contents]
Southward Ho!
No. 2 Hospital Train,
Monday, February 18th.