“Dimples has often spoken of you. He has been expecting you for weeks. I’m just going in.”
“You are Doctor Peters—Pete?” The Y secretary nodded. “What ails him? I heard he was wounded—”
“Yes. His leg. It’s very serious. I come every day.”
The speaker led the way, and Shipp followed down a long hall redolent of sickly drug smells, past clean white operating-rooms peopled with silent-moving figures, past doors through which the captain glimpsed dwindling rows of beds and occasional sights that caused his face to set. In that hushed half-whisper assumed by hospital visitors, he inquired:
“How did it happen?”
“There was a raid—a heavy barrage and considerable gas—and it caught him while he was up with supplies for the men. He began helping the wounded out, of course. It was a nasty affair—our men were new, you see, and it was pretty trying for green troops. They said, later, that he helped to steady them quite as much as did their officers.”
“I can believe that. He’s a man to tie to.”
“Yes, yes. We all felt that, the very first day he came. Why, he was an inspiration to the men! He was mother, brother, pal, servant to the best and to the worst of them. Always laughing, singing—There! Listen!”
The Reverend Doctor Peters paused inside the entrance to a ward, and Shipp heard a familiar voice raised in quavering song:
“By the star-shell’s light,