Brother C. Strangwick, a young, tallish, new-made Brother, hailed from some South London Lodge. His papers and his answers were above suspicion, but his red-rimmed eyes had a puzzled glare that might mean nerves. So I introduced him particularly to Keede, who discovered in him a Headquarters Orderly of his old Battalion, congratulated him on his return to fitness—he had been discharged for some infirmity or other—and plunged at once into Somme memories.
“I hope I did right, Keede,” I said when we were robing before Lodge.
“Oh, quite. He reminded me that I had him under my hands at Sampoux in ’Eighteen, when he went to bits. He was a Runner.”
“Was it shock?” I asked.
“Of sorts—but not what he wanted me to think it was. No, he wasn’t shamming. He had Jumps to the limit—but he played up to mislead me about the reason of ’em.... Well, if we could stop patients from lying, medicine would be too easy, I suppose.”
I noticed that, after Lodge-working, Keede gave him a seat a couple of rows in front of us, that he might enjoy a lecture on the Orientation of King Solomon’s Temple, which an earnest Brother thought would be a nice interlude between labour and the high tea that we called our “Banquet.” Even helped by tobacco it was a dreary performance. About half-way through, Strangwick, who had been fidgeting and twitching for some minutes, rose, drove back his chair grinding across the tessellated floor, and yelped: “Oh, My Aunt! I can’t stand this any longer.” Under cover of a general laugh of assent he brushed past us and stumbled towards the door.
“I thought so!” Keede whispered to me. “Come along!” We overtook him in the passage, crowing hysterically and wringing his hands. Keede led him into the Tyler’s Room, a small office where we stored odds and ends of regalia and furniture, and locked the door.
“I’m—I’m all right,” the boy began, piteously.
“’Course you are.” Keede opened a small cupboard which I had seen called upon before, mixed sal volatile and water in a graduated glass, and, as Strangwick drank, pushed him gently on to an old sofa. “There,” he went on. “It’s nothing to write home about. I’ve seen you ten times worse. I expect our talk has brought things back.”
He hooked up a chair behind him with one foot, held the patient’s hands in his own, and sat down. The chair creaked.