"Well?" I said.
"Why don't you read?"
"What? Have we begun?" I asked in surprise. I couldn't see anything.
The medical officer came over to me and in a friendly way put his hand over my left eye. It didn't help much, but I spotted where he came from, and gathered that the card must be in that direction. Gradually it began to loom through the blackness.
"Wait a moment," I said. I removed his hand and gazed keenly at the opposite wall. "That's a B," I announced proudly. "That top one."
The doctor and the sergeant looked at each other.
"It's no good," sighed the sergeant.
"He can't even read the first two lines," groaned the doctor.
"It's all very well for you two," I broke in indignantly; "one of you lives down here and is used to it, and the other knows the card by heart. I haven't come to enlist for night operations only. Surely your regiment does things in the daylight sometimes?"
The doctor, only knowing about the daylight by hearsay, looked blank; the sergeant repeated sadly, "Not even the first two lines."