"Then," said the Sister, "do your best to cheer him up. Don't let him think you're distressed at his blindness," and she took the girl along to the ward where Bill Stevens lay waiting, restless and feverish.
"Bill darling," said Emily. "It's me. How are you? Why have you got that bandage on?" But long before poor Bill could find words to break the news to her she stooped over him and whispered: "Bill dear, I could almost wish you were blind, so that you'd have to depend on me, like. If it wasn't for your own pain, I'd wish you was blind, I would really."
For a long time Bill stuttered and fumbled for words, for his joy was too great. "I am blind, Em'ly," he murmured at last.
And the whole ward looked the other way as Emily kissed away his fears. As for Bill Stevens, he sang and laughed and talked so much that evening that the Matron had to come down to stop him.
For, as my legless friend remarked, "We in 'orspital is the lucky ones, an' any bloke what ain't killed ought to be 'appy and bright like we is."
II
A RECIPE FOR GENERALS
Everyone is always anxious to get on the right side of his General; I have chanced upon a recipe which I believe to be infallible for anyone who wears spurs, and who can, somehow or other, get himself in the presence of that venerated gentleman.
I sat one day in a trench outside my dug-out, eating a stew made of bully beef, ration biscuits, and foul water. Inside my dug-out, the smell of buried men was not conducive to a good appetite; outside, some horrible Hun was amusing himself by firing at the sandbag just above me, and sending showers of earth down my neck and into my food. It is an aggravating fact that the German always makes himself particularly objectionable about lunch-time, and that, whenever you go in the trench, his bullets seem to follow you—an unerring instinct brings them towards food. A larger piece of earth than usual in my stew routed the last vestige of my good-humour. Prudence warning me of the futility of losing my temper with a Hun seventy yards away, I called loudly for my servant.