His chest was hurting him a little. He was growing weak. It was the first time he had sat up for more than half an hour. Meadows noticed him sink back in his chair, quickly summoned two orderlies and had him lifted back in bed, her capable hands patting the pillow into a comfortable shape, and tucking in the blankets in a twinkling.
“Don’t swallow this, like Little Nemo over there,” she said. “He eats everything I give him—soup, thermometers, roast turkey, shaving soap—everything—a regular ostrich. Now let’s take your hand. Something exciting in that letter? What’s the matter with your pulse, colonel? Don’t worry, I’ll get you back to her in ten days, good as new—if I have to write my own prescriptions. Oh, it’s not so high for a man in love. Temperature normal.”
Meadows made a notation on his chart at the foot of the bed and then passed on to the next bed, and Hamilton had a sudden desire to seize her white hand and hold it.
VI
Hamilton was sitting at the window, his favorite position, watching the stream of people on the street below. He had walked up and down the room for perhaps five minutes—the first time in months—and was now resting. Little pains, like needles, were running up his limbs. His wound had entirely healed, leaving only a long, livid scar. Hamilton called the wound his barometer. He could foretell any change in the weather accurately by the twinges it gave him. At present it indicated “clear weather.”
Hamilton had begun to doze away in the warm sunshine, when he heard a thumping of crutches down the corridor. He turned around.
“If it isn’t old Ham himself!” cried the man on crutches.
“Bill McCall!” Hamilton was on his feet. “Where’d you come from?”
The next moment they were shaking hands and looking into each other’s eyes. Hamilton retained his grasp.
“I want to thank you, Bill, I want to tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done,” Hamilton began, his throat choking. “I don’t know what to say; but I’ll always feel indebted to you for my—life.”