WOLVES AND THEIR PREY
The end of August found the French and Chinese in the same state of impasse. As a consequence there was little bloodshed, and few wounded were being brought into the hospital. If it had not been for the shocking carelessness of the Chinese in handling firearms and explosives, there would have been almost none. Time began to hang somewhat heavy on the hands of Dr. Sinclair and his assistant.
"Getting mighty slow here," he remarked to Gorman one day.
"Slower than promotion for merit in the service," was the reply.
"You haven't it so bad. You can always amuse yourself drilling 'that ambulance corpse of yourn,' as General Leatherbottom calls it."
"Divil a bit: There's nothin' more for me to t'ache thim. Tuk till it loike ducks to wather. Can imitate me till if they were wanst in service outfit I'd swear it was the multiplication table of meself a'marchin' down the road."
Sinclair laughed.
"That's just what I've been noticing," he said. "When you took hold of them every man jack toed in. Now they all turn their toes out at a little more than an angle of forty-five degrees, just as you do. And right down to that little spindly chap, twenty-five inches around the hips, they all strut as if they were as broad in the beam as yourself."
"Bedad thin, I'm not the only wan! It's the same wid your bhoys inside. They're jist reduced copies of yourself. They bate Banagher for imitation."
"Suppose we leave those fellows to look after things for a couple of days and run over to Tamsui while business is slack. If things were to brighten up a bit here, we might not get another chance."