VII
It was impossible to discover from Ernie how long this amazing journey lasted—the best part of two months I believe. He was himself a little uncertain with regard to many incidents, whether they were true or whether they were hallucinations. He suffered greatly from his wound and had periods of feverishness. But one morning, he said, Martin began “prancing.” He seemed to develop some curious sense that they were near the Dutch frontier. And then, according to Ernie, “a cat wasn’t in it with Martin.”
He was very mysterious about the actual crossing. I gathered that there had been some “clumsy” work with sentries. It was at that time that Ernie got a bullet through his arm. When he got to Holland he was very ill. It was not that the wound was a very serious one, but, as he explained:
“Me blood was in a bad state. I was nearly down and out.”
He was very kindly treated by some Dutch Sisters in a convent hospital. But he was delirious for a long time, and when he became more normal they wanted to communicate with his people in England, but this didn’t appeal to the dramatic sense of Ernie.
“I thought I’d spring a surprise packet on you,” he said, grinning.
We asked about Martin, but Ernie said he never saw him again. He went away while Ernie was delirious, and they said he had gone to Rotterdam to take ship somewhere. He thought Holland was a dull place.
During the relation of this narrative my attention was divided between watching the face of Ernie and the face of Ernie’s mother.
I am quite convinced that she did not listen to the story at all. She never took her eyes from his face, and although her tongue was following the flow of his remarks, her mind was occupied with the vision of Ernie when he was a little boy, and when he ordered five tons of coal to be sent to the girls’ school.
When he had finished she said: