But Setley was temporarily beyond the "bucking up" stage. He had fainted again.
When he recovered consciousness Ralph was in a base hospital. Almost the first question he asked was whether his men were safe. Receiving an affirmative reply, he enquired whether the nature of his wounds would put him out of the running for active service.
"Bless my soul, no!" replied the doctor. "A few months at home and you'll be as fit as a fiddle. Let me be the first to congratulate you, Mr. Setley."
"On what?" asked Ralph.
"Promotion and the D.S.O.," replied the medico. "Both well earned, let me say. Now, don't get excited, or you'll put yourself back. The sooner you get fit the sooner you'll be given the command of one of the latest super-Tanks. I know that for a fact."
"That's good," murmured the wounded lieutenant. "All I hope is that when the Greatest Push comes off I'll again be to the Fore with the Tanks!"
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Transcriber's Notes:
A probable misprint, which was not corrected, is:
[said Sefton] —> [said Setley]
Nowhere else in the book the name [Sefton] is used.
And the dialog where this occurs, implies that this
must be [Setley].
In the paper version, used to make this digital text, there
is a page (page no. 168, chapter XVI) where the text was
damaged to such an extent that it was unreadable. The area
covered five lines. On those lines the first words were
corrupted. These pieces are marked in this text with
[unreadable text].
A few cases of punctuation errors were corrected, but are
not mentioned here.