When we reached him he was dripping with perspiration, and trembling like a startled horse. We had great difficulty in soothing him. He complained that he was in civilian kit, and wanted to tear my clothes off his body. I ordered him to strip, and we made a second exchange as quickly as possible.
The rasp of his own “greyback” shirt and the squeak of his boots seemed to bring him to himself. He put his hands before his eyes and said—
“Wot was it? I ain’t mad, I ain’t sunstrook, an’ I’ve bin an’ gone an’ said, an’ bin an’ gone an’ done.... Wot ’ave I bin an’ done!”
“Fwhat have you done?” said Mulvaney. “You’ve dishgraced yourself—though that’s no matter. You’ve dishgraced B Comp’ny, an’ worst av all, you’ve dishgraced Me! Me that taught you how for to walk abroad like a man—whin you was a dhirty little, fish-backed little, whimperin’ little recruity. As you are now, Stanley Orth’ris!”
Ortheris said nothing for a while, Then he unslung his belt, heavy with the badges of half a dozen regiments that his own had lain with, and handed it over to Mulvaney.
“I’m too little for to mill you, Mulvaney,” he, “an’ you’ve strook me before; but you can take an’ cut me in two with this ’ere if you like.”
Mulvaney turned to me.
“Lave me to talk to him, sorr,” said Mulvaney.
I left, and on my way home thought a good deal over Ortheris in particular, and my friend Private Thomas Atkins whom I love, in general.
But I could not come to any conclusion of any kind whatever.