"We're to sleep 'ere to-night in the cellar under the dressin'-station," they told me. "In the mornin' we're to report to the doctor again. 'E's a bloke 'e is, that doctor. 'E says we're to take nothing but heggs and milk and the milk must be boiled."
"Is the army going to supply it?"
"No blurry fear," said Bill. "Even if we 'ad the brass and the appetite we can't buy any milk or heggs 'ere."
I went back to the firing trench alone. Bill and Ted Vittle did not return the next day or the day after. Three weeks later Bill came back.
We were sitting in our dug-out at a village the bawl of a donkey from Souchez, when a jew's harp, playing ragtime was heard outside.
"Bill," we exclaimed in a voice, and sure enough it was Bill back to us again, trig and tidy from hospital, in a new uniform, new boots and with that air of importance which can only be the privilege of a man who has seen strange sights in strange regions.
"What's your temperature?" asked Stoner.
"Blimey, it's the correct thing now, but it didn't arf go up and down," said Bill sitting down on the dug-out chair, our only one since a shell dropped through the roof. Some days before B Company had held the dug-out and two of the boys were killed. "It's no fun the 'orspital I can tell yer."
"What sort of disease is Pyraxis?" asked Goliath.
"It's not 'arf bad, if you've got it bad, and it's not good when you've it only 'arf bad," said Bill, adding, "I mean that if I 'ad it bad I would get off to blighty, but my case was only a light one, not so bad as Ted Vittle. 'E's not back yet, maybe it's a trip across the Channel for 'im. 'E was real bad when 'e walked down with me to Mazingarbe. I was rotten too, couldn't smoke. It was sit down and rest for fifteen minutes then walk for five. Mazingarbe is only a mile and an 'arf from the dressing-station and it took us three hours to get down; from there we took the motor-ambulance to the clearing hospital. There was a 'ot bath there and we were put to bed in a big 'ouse, blankets, plenty of them and a good bed. 'Twas a grand place to kip in. Bad as I was, I noticed that."