When the saddle was brought in, I told the colonel what Jot had written
about ripping it open. With a smile which I could not interpret, he cut
the stitches with his pocket knife and, inserting his fingers, drew
out two packages, passed one to me and retained the other. Giving the
saddle to his man he directed him to restore the stitching, and bring
the saddle back to him.
“There are some blankets,” he said to me. “Make yourself comfortable
and get your sleep. If there is anything else you want call on me.”
“Since you are so kind to mention it, Colonel,” I said, “have you got
anything to eat around here? I feel pretty empty, and have ever since I
struck the Huns.”
The colonel smiled and directed his man to feed me. And that darkey got
me up a lunch to which I did full justice.
“Golly!” said that personage, with astonished awe at seeing his
provender disappear about as fast as he could bring it on: “You’s de
most powerful eater I’s eber seed; you’s done gone an’ beat de Kernal
fo’ sure!”
When I had finished my repast, I said, “I want to see the little horse
before I sleep, and to thank him for bringing me through safely.”
So I went out with Sam but found the colonel there before me. He
explained that Jack must be sent back that night, so after I had petted
and talked to Jack I clapped my hands and sent him swiftly away over
the fields.
“You must not mention this,” said the colonel; “but it is not the first
time, and the horse always finds his way back to the place from which
he last went.”
I understood.
“Now, Captain,” he said, “get your sleep. I have much still to do
tonight.”
I was getting ready for bed, when in rushed Muddy, frantically barking
and yelping to give me welcome.
“De colonel thought you’d like to see him powerful well,” said Sam, “so
I lets him out.” And Muddy snuggled down beside me to share my bed, as
he had often done before.
It was late in the morning when Sam called me to breakfast where I
found the colonel waiting for me.
“We shall have time for breakfast, this morning,” he said, “as we are
likely to have a little peace now; for yesterday we sent the enemy to
the right about face with a kick! But all the same we’ve got orders to
hold ourselves in readiness to move at a moment’s notice, Captain.”
“Lieutenant sir,” I corrected. “You forget.”
“No,” said my colonel, “you’ve been promoted. We all agree that you
deserved it, for the fight you put up when you were captured. Captain
Cross has been promoted to be major.”
“I am ready to begin fighting right now,” I said, blushing with pride
in spite of myself; “but I don’t know how I shall fill a _captain’s_
place, though I suppose that I can walk around in it.”
“Oh, that will come,” said my colonel, “and you can study up a little
while you are on permission. I have been promoted too: Brevet Brigadier
if that is promotion.”
“Fine!” I said. “I guess I will stay with the company and learn my
duties; but I’d like to get this hole in my arm fixed up a little.”
“Wounded! I hadn’t noticed it; why didn’t you mention it before? Here,
orderly, show the captain the way to the surgeon’s station.” Then
looking at my arm from which I had removed the bandage, preparatory to
putting on a clean one, he said, “Whew! It’s gangrened; you can’t go on
duty in that shape!”
I went to the station slowly and sorrowfully, for I had looked for
plentiful _chow_, and my experience told me that a surgeon was likely
to put me on short rations. I had had, heaven knows, enough of that
while in Bocheland to last me the rest of my life, and I was not
anxious for its continuance under a sawbone. I should not have cared so
much, had I thought it needful; but I _knew_ that plenty of food was
good for me--all theories of doctors notwithstanding.
I found several letters from home folks, and also one from Emily Grant
that delighted me. Its contents were enough to make a less susceptible
heart than mine beat fast. Sentiments and feelings that had almost
been starved out of me were revived and, when General Burbank suggested
that I go to the hospital where Doctor Rich was in charge, I fear I
consented rather too willingly; though I did want to get at those
Boches again. But as the colonel had said that the division was to go
to another sector for rest, I was the more willing.
When I first reported to the hospital the doctor didn’t seem to know
me. He examined my wound, sniffed at it, grumbled out something about
inflammation and ulceration, and a little of his camouflage Latin, then
directed his assistant to apply caustic with such calm indifference
to my wishes, that I had an inclination to bang his eye. And then he
fussed some more while giving directions to his assistant, until I was
out of patience with him.
“What dunce,” he said, “has been fooling with this wound?”
“No dunce at all, sir,” I replied, “but as good a surgeon as you are.
Only he didn’t have the stuff to care for it as you have. Like myself,
the Boches had him.”
The doctor, who knew me as well as I knew him, had been so absorbed
with examining the wound that he had taken little notice of the soldier
attached to it. Now he recognized me and greeted me heartily.
“You’ve grown thin, Stark--and your clothes!”
“I have been starved,” I said, “and I am ragged and dirty too. I need
good food and a lot of it, so that I can get my strength back. As
for dirt, I haven’t been traveling in Pullman cars or sleeping in
first-class hotels, Doctor. I am satisfied to be here, dirt, rags and
all. But don’t give that food the absent treatment.”
“You will have to go on low diet for a while, I’m afraid,” said the
doctor, “until the wound heals.”
I growled some more, but it did no good. If Surgeon Williams failed to
understand my views about diet, he at least did not slight the wound.
He had made a “history of the case” and applied a new dressing, all
within two hours; for was I not Captain Stark, and not merely “a case”?
When I escaped that doctor, got some clean clothes, a shave, a hair
cut, and a good dinner, I felt fit for anything, and wanted to see my
comrades.
They had heard of my return from Fritzland, and came clustering around
me with many expressions of good will; and _my_, wasn’t I glad to see
the boys that had stood by me so stoutly in the fight? The painful part
of it was that there were so many absent ones who would never report
for duty again. The boys were as glad to see me as I was them--for had
we not fought side by side through thick and thin? And this gives a
feeling of comradeship that can never be gained in any other way, one
that can never be broken, and which soldiers who have stood by each
other in danger alone can fully appreciate.
“Shure,” said Pat Quinn--now a sergeant--saluting, “we give them Boches
wan Hail Columbia drubbing, Captain!”
“Yes,” I replied; “but I got ‘The Watch on the Rhine,’ and didn’t like
it.”
“Well,” said Sutherland, who had just returned to duty from a severe
wound, “we can’t have all of it our own way, but we must try and get
the best of the exchange of drubbings. If the Boches would only fight
a fair fight we might forgive them, but some of our men were killed in
that last fight by explosive bullets--the savages!” And it was true.
In the heartiness of our greeting we forgot rank, and only remembered
that we were comrades who had stood by each other in the pinch of
battle. Muddy was a great favorite.
“That little devil of a dog,” said Quinn, “knows too much for wan dog.
Shure by carrying your lether, he did as much as any tin av us in that
fight.”
I reported once more to Colonel Burbank who turned me over to Major
Cross, who said with a provoking wink, “You will have to go to a
hospital--perhaps you would prefer the one Doctor Rich has charge
of? When your wound is healed, you will get a permission for two
weeks more. Perhaps you will prefer to stay near there during your
permission!” Then with a chuckle of amusement he added, “I see that
Monte Carlo has been offered as a leave area, but has not been
accepted. Just imagine the ‘Y’ or the Salvation Army setting up
headquarters in front of the Casino.”
“I don’t want much of a permission,” I said, “for I have a debt to pay
the Huns before I die; and I am afraid that in spite of your going into
a rest sector soon, you will get them licked before I can get around to
fight them.”
“Don’t worry about that,” answered he. “There will be fighting enough,
so that half of us may possibly be dead before we have finished this
job; especially if the last sample of fighting you gave us is repeated.”
“I know that I lost more men than I should,” I replied. “Still I don’t
believe the Huns thought that their fun paid for their powder.”
“No, nor I either,” said the major, putting out his hand and grasping
my shoulder with the other. “You made a good skillful fight of it.”
“I have some doubts about the skill,” I said; “but my men! weren’t they
daisies for a scrap?”
And we agreed about that.
The next day I took my departure for the hospital with conflicting
emotions. I wanted to go, and yet I wanted to stay, for fear that I
might miss a chance to hit back at the Huns. But obedience to orders
and--other considerations--tipped the scales.
I can not describe my reception at the hospital without appearing
egotistical. While my wound was given proper attention, it was pleasant
to feel that, for once, in a hospital, I was something more than a
“_case_.”
Emily’s face beamed with pleasure as with smiles and blushes she
greeted me. She was not so wordy in her expressions of welcome as was
Miss Rich; but somehow I liked Emily’s way best.
Dr. Rich had common sense; he did not prescribe any special diet, but
when I hinted that a liberal one suited me best, said: “Eat what best
agrees with you. A patient ought to know what agrees with him better
than a doctor.”
That suited me exactly. He gave me perfect liberty to go and come just
as I pleased--only I must report once a day to have my wound dressed,
and of course three times a day for my meals, and also sleep there.
I stuck to that hospital, and one of its nurses, more faithfully
than perhaps my case demanded; and I was interested in cases and in
everything else of which Emily had charge.
There was one young whipper-snapper of an assistant surgeon, who
evidently thought that she devoted too much time to my case, for he was
around when he wasn’t wanted and constantly annoyed me by detailing
her to some other case she had in hand. I wouldn’t have needed much
encouragement to have kicked the puppy, he made himself so disagreeable
to me.
There were several men of my company who had been seriously wounded
when I was, to whom I gave personal, sympathetic attention. I requested
Emily to give them special care--and I brought them cigars and other
luxuries, with the consent of Doctor Rich; for such little attentions
go a great way in comforting boys who are wounded and away from home.
I found my friend, Chaplain John, so far recovered from his wound, that
he was about to return to the regiment again. We had many comforting
talks, and he congratulated me on my promotion, and spoke of the brave
fight my men had made at the time I was captured.
“I was afraid,” I said, “that they would find fault with me for losing
so many men.”
“No,” he said, “it was thought that you did the best thing possible
in fighting, rather than retreating; and the colonel praised your
judgment and firmness.”
There’s one thing I liked in Chaplain John, which was that he never
made a fellow feel cheap by plastering it on too thick.
“I’m afraid that the colonel is rather partial to me,” I said
bluntly. Emily, who was listening to our talk, cast down her eyes and
blushed--she has most beautiful eyelashes--as the chaplain said, in one
of his miserable attempts to be funny, “So are others!”
All things must have an end. My wound healed, and my permission, in
addition, was about to expire; and but for that young peacock of an
assistant surgeon, I should have been glad--almost--to get back to my
company and duty again.
Before going I had a private conversation with Miss Rich, and told
her something about Lieutenant Nickerson that brought the happy
tears to her eyes. “How could you have doubted him?” she said half
reproachfully. “I never did!”
The day that I was to leave the hospital for the front, I requested a
private interview with Emily--to bid her good-bye. As she stood there
with her hand in mine, perhaps a trifle longer than necessary, that
puppy of a young doctor knocked at the door--and would have pushed his
way in had I not placed my back against it--and called out that she was
needed on a case at once.
I was so annoyed at this intrusion that I told Emily--well never mind
what--but we had an understanding that was so nice, that I almost
forgave the puppy for “butting in”--and something better than words
cemented the understanding.