“I would rather stay and be killed than go away and be safe.”
That aroused my suspicions. Perhaps they ought to have been aroused
before; but, then, I am only a man. I saw how the Surgeon-Major had been
managed.
“Please,” she repeated softly.
She laid her hand on my arm, and did not withdraw it when she found that
the sleeve was wet with something that was thicker than water.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Oh, all right--stay!”
I was sorry for it the next day, when we had the old familiar music of
the bullets overhead.
Later in the morning matters became more serious. The enemy had a gun
with which they dropped six-pound shot into us. One of these fell on to
the corner of our hospital where Boulson lay. It tore the canvas, and
almost closed Boulson's career.
Nurse Fielding was at him like a terrier, and lifted him bodily from his
cot. She was one of those largely framed fair women who have strength,
both physical and mental.
She was carrying him across the tent when I heard the thud of a bullet.
Nurse Fielding stopped for a moment and seemed to hesitate. She laid
Boulson tenderly down on the ground, and then fell across him, while the
blood ran from her cotton bodice over his face and neck.
And that was what I meant when I asked the lady in the barouche at the
Park gate whether she ever felt that shoulder now. And the man I
dine with to-night is not called Boulson, but he has a charge of
dust-shot--the result of a boyish experiment--in his right arm.