When I sat down on the seat facing the Row there was already on it a
soldier in the familiar blue clothes. He had the red moustache which
inevitably leads to the nickname of "Ginger," or possibly "Carrots," and
he was smoking a cigarette. By his side were his crutches. After a
minute or so a very tall figure, also in blue, hobbled towards us and
took the space between Ginger and myself.
The freemasonry of arms has, I suppose, always, among rankers, made any
introduction needless; but there has unhappily come in a new and a super
freemasonry which goes beyond anything that uniform could do. I mean the
freemasonry of mutilation. By reason of their wounds these strangers
were as brothers.
At first they talked hospitals. Then regiments. Then Haig, of whom it
has so finely and finally been said, by another British hero: "'Aig 'e
don't say much; 'e don't, so to say, say nothin'; but what 'e don't say
don't mean nothin', not 'arf. But when 'e do say something--my Gawd!"
Then they came to grips and mentioned the cause of their
injuries--bullet or shrapnel. Then the time and the place. Both had been
hit in the knee, and this coincidence, operating like all coincidences,
added to their friendliness. Their cigarettes finishing simultaneously,
Ginger gave Six-foot-two one of his; and Six-foot-two offered his little
packet to Ginger in exchange.
"Do you often come here?" Ginger asked.
"Every fine day," said Six-foot-two, "unless there's a ride in a brake
or a free matinee on the tappy."
"I must look you up again," said Ginger.
"Do," said Six-foot-two. "When do you expect to leave?"
"I can't say," replied Ginger. "There's no knowing. You see mine's a
very extraordinary case." He smiled complacently.
"That's funny. So's mine," said Six-foot-two.
"How do you mean--extraordinary?" the other asked a little sharply.
"Why, the doctors have had so much difficulty with it. It's a unique,
they say. How many operations did you have?"
"How many did you have?" Ginger replied, with the caution of the
challenged.
"Go on--I asked you first," said Six-foot-two. "Was it more than eight,
anyway?"
"It was ten," said Ginger.
"Well, I had eleven," said Six-foot-two proudly. "They went after those
bullets eleven times. But they're all out now. I had every doctor in the
place round me."
"So did I," said Ginger, "and one of my bullets isn't out yet. It's
right in the bone. They're going to try again soon." He had quite
recovered his good-humour.
"What about your patella?" Six-foot-two inquired after a pause.
"My what?"
"Your patella. Do you mean to say the doctors didn't talk about that?"
"I dare say they may have done, but I don't remember. Still, _our_
doctors don't talk much--they act."
"Well, so do ours. There aren't better doctors in the world than at our
place, I can tell you. It's common knowledge. Why, Sir Rashleigh Hewitt
is there every day--the great Sir Rashleigh Hewitt, the King's doctor."
"Well, the King has more than one. Sir Frank Carver is another, and he's
at our place day and night. He's a masterpiece."
"I've always understood," said Six-foot-two, "that Sir Rashleigh is at
the very head of his profession. The nurses say so."
"He may be for some things," Ginger conceded. "But not the knee. Sir
Frank Carver is the crack knee man. Now if you'd been at our place I
dare say that one operation would have been enough for you."
"Enough? What rot! How could it be enough, with all the complications? I
tell you it's a unique, my case."
"Yes, it may be. But what I'm getting at is that it might not be if
you'd had Sir Frank Carver, the great knee specialist, at it at once."
"Oh, give Sir Frank Carver a rest. Sir Rashleigh Hewitt's good enough
for me and for anyone else who knows."
"All right," said Ginger. "Keep your hair on!"
"My hair's on right enough," said Six-foot-two. "It's you who are
getting ratty."
There was a pause, and both lighted new cigarettes, each taking one of
his own.
"What puzzles me," Six-foot-two began slowly, "is no one saying anything
about your patella. That's the great marvel of my case--my patella. It's
full of holes, like a sieve. There's never been one like it before. The
profession's wild about it. That's what makes me so interesting to
them."
"Where is it, anyway?" Ginger snapped out.
"In the knee, of course."
"In the knee! Well, if it's in the knee mine must be full of holes too.
I've got everything you can have in the knee, I tell you. Everything."
"Have they written anything about you in the papers?" Six-foot-two
asked. "No. Ah," he went on triumphantly, "they have about me. There's a
medical paper with a piece in it all about my patella. I sent it home
and they've framed it. It's the most astonishing thing in surgery that
I should be able to be walking about at all."
"That's what they tell _me_," Ginger replied. "But, anyhow, your bullets
are all out. I've got another one yet, and by the time that's out I dare
say I shall have had twenty operations and a whole column in the papers.
But as for articles in papers, they're nothing. Have you got your X-ray
photograph?"
"No," Six-foot-two admitted.
"They gave me mine," said Ginger. "I sent it home. It's over the
mantelpiece, my mother says. People come from miles to look at it. It's
a pity you didn't get yours. That was foolish of you, if I may say so.
Well, so long. I'm having tea to-day with one of our grand lady visitors
in Rutland Gate. If you don't see me here when you come again, the
chances are I shall be having my next operation. So long!"
"So long!" said Six-foot-two.
Ginger on his crutches moved away.
"Extraordinary," Six-foot-two murmured, either to me or to himself or to
the Park at large, "how some blokes always want to be the most important
things in the world."