He disappeared.
Alf stared open-mouthed at the spot where the apparition had stood. Then in a sudden panic at what he took to be the effect of French beer after the enforced abstemiousness of the trenches, he rushed into the hut and rolled himself up in his blanket. He felt at once aggrieved and frightened; for he was not drunk nor even exhilarated, and yet he had got to the far more advanced stage of "seeing things." He gave no answer to any enquiries after his health nor any other sign of life until the orderly sergeant came round at réveillé next morning.
"Now then, 'Iggins, show a leg," said the N.C.O.
Higgins had been awake for some time. He felt all right, and had already assured himself by a cautious glance round that he was no longer seeing demons. He sat up, and flung his blankets cheerfully from him.
"Right-o, sergeant," he said.
The sergeant's eyes bulged. All that could be seen of Higgins—his face, hands and the part of his neck and chest not covered by his shirt—was one glorious shade of salmon-pink, shining and glossy as if from the application of a coat of Mr. Aspinall's best enamel.
"Come out o' that, quick!" said Sergeant Anderson, retreating hastily. "Corporal Spink, take this man along to the M.O. at once—don't wait for sick parade. It's measles and scarlet fever and smallpox and nettlerash all mixed up, you've got, me lad. 'Ere, keep yer distance."
The regimental M.O., nonplused and frightened, at once got into touch with the Field Ambulance and had Higgins—now in the last stage of panic and convinced that his end was near—removed to a Casualty Clearing Station. Then he descended on "C" Company's billet with some pungent form of chemical disinfectant, and rendered that erstwhile happy home utterly uninhabitable. The company, spluttering and swearing, tumbled out and ate its breakfast shivering in the open. If threats and curses could kill, Alf would have been a dead man fifty times over.
On his arrival at the C.C.S. his clothes were taken from him, and he was isolated for observation in a small ward; and a keen young medical practitioner named Browne—temporary captain in the R.A.M.C.—undertook his extraordinary case.
On finding that he did not immediately die, Alf recovered his normal spirits, and for a week he thoroughly enjoyed himself. He was a public character—all the medical officers within reach came and shook their heads over him. He felt perfectly well; his pulse and temperature were from the first normal; but his hue remained undimmed. An old doctor who chanced to arrive when Higgins was having his midday meal, got out his notebook and entered "Abnormally voracious appetite" as a salient symptom of the new disease; but this was a mistake. In fact, no further symptoms of any kind developed; and in the end Captain Browne, in despair, determined to give up the case and to send Alf to see a noted skin-specialist at the Base.