Mamise’s injuries were painful and cruel, but not dangerous. Of Jake Nuddle there was not enough left to assure Larrey of his identification. Of Nicky Easton there was so little trace that the first searchers did not know that he had perished.
Davidge and Mamise were taken to the hospital, and when Davidge was restored to consciousness his first words were a groan of awful satisfaction:
“I got a German!”
When he learned that he had no longer a right arm he smiled again and muttered:
“It’s great to be wounded for your country.”
Which was a rather inelegant paraphrase of the classic “Dulce et decorum,” but caught its spirit admirably.
Of Jake Nuddle he knew nothing and forgot everything till some days later, when he was permitted to speak to Mamise, in whose welfare he was more interested than his own, and the story of whose unimportant wounds harrowed him more than his own.
Her voice came to him over the bedside telephone. After an exchange of the inevitable sympathies and regrets and tendernesses, Mamise sighed:
“Well, we’re luckier than poor Jake.”
“We are? What happened to him?”