CHAPTER XXVI A HOSPITAL CASE

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.