“Dunno. It isn’t the close season for Jocks, anyhow. Then it was ten police-corporals. The last rumour was that they’d stoned the A.P.M. to death——”
And so it went on. Lunch-time came. A Doctor Major, impressed by Dormer’s credentials, invited him into the Mess, and asked a lot of questions about the front, the offensive, and the state of Étaples. Dormer always liked those medical messes. It seemed so much more worth while to mend up people’s limbs, rather than to smash them to bits. The Doctors had their professional “side” no doubt, but they had a right to it.
After lunch Dormer made his way back to Ward C. He was met by a hush, and by a little procession. The Sergeant-major came first and after him bearers with a stretcher covered by the Union Jack. The hush in the ward was ominous. They were all so close to what had happened. It was not like the open field where the casualty is a casualty and the living man a different thing. Here the dead were only different in degree, not in kind. They were worse “cases”—the worst, that was all. So there were no high spirits after lunch. They had gibed about Death in the morning, but Death had come and they had ceased to gibe. In the silence, Dormer felt awkward, did not know how to begin. When he had made up his mind that he must, he looked up and found Andrews was asleep. So the day wore on to tea-time, and after tea he was not wanted in the ward, and was wanted in the Mess. He himself was not hurrying to return to any regularly bombed hut near Poperinghe. The Commanding Officer was even more emphatic. Étaples was not safe. Dormer let it go at that, and got a good game of bridge.
In the morning he found young Andrews as young as ever and got down to his job at once:
“Do you remember joining 469 T.M.B.?”
“Yes, sh’d think I do.”
“Do you remember the man you had as servant while you were with them?”
“I do. Topping feller. Gad, I was sorry when I had to leave him behind. Of course, I dropped him when I went to hospital. Never was so done!”
At last!
“You couldn’t give me his name and number, I suppose?”