The Angel and Bob, pale with excitement, came rushing into my cabin directly Dr. Clegg had finished with me, and of course they wanted to see the letter. Bob wanted the stamps and begged the envelope. He gave a whoop. 'Look at that, Billums—on the back—it's in French!'
Scrawled in pencil very hurriedly was Votre frère est blessé seulement dans le bras droit.
Phew! then there had been a battle after all, and I felt sick all over, because it struck me that my brother might have been captured, otherwise how would the A.D.C. know? And if he was captured, I knew it meant San Sebastian and a firing-party.
It was mail day too; I had to write home, and it was jolly difficult not to tell the mater what I'd heard about Gerald. I couldn't tell her about the little brute either—only about my having done so badly at football.
It was lucky I didn't say anything about Gerald, because three days later—Dr. Clegg still kept me in my bunk—one of our boats brought off another note to me.
'One of those nigger kind of chaps gave it me, sir,' the coxswain of the boat said. 'Didn't seem to talk English—nothing but your name, sir. He cleared out directly he'd got rid of it.'
I thought of Gerald's messenger and thought it must be from Gerald, though it wasn't in his handwriting. It was from Gerald, for all that, and I soon knew why the handwriting was so funny, for he wrote:
'We've had a bit of a scrap—got a bit of a shell in my right arm. Learning to write with my left—don't tell the mater. We got a bit of a hiding—my fault—I'm all serene barring the arm. You'll hear news, important news soon.—GERALD.'
Well, he wasn't a prisoner, which was the great thing, and I felt jolly cheerful again.
'Wouldn't it be ripping if we could get some leave and go over there and chip in?' Bob and the Angel said, their mouths and eyes wide open.