ile of a
cherub. "An' don't ye know, laddie, that it's always the saints in heaven
that has the worst sinners on their hands? 'Tis jealous ye are, not being
wicked enough to get a bit more of her attention yerself."

Sheila smiled impartially at them both, and with a parting promise of
dressings to come she hurried off. Ward 7-A settled itself to wait for the
worst and the best that the day had to offer. The room was a very small
one, and the thirteen cots barely crowded into it, with space at the foot
for Jamie O'Hara's wheel-chair to go the length and turn. They had been
kept together by Sheila's urgent plea that they should be given a ward to
themselves instead of scattering them through the larger wards, and it is
doubtful if in all the war a more quietly merciful act had been executed.
Not one of the thirteen but would have scorned to show any sign of
dependence on the others, yet intuitively the girl had guessed what they
would be able to give one another in the matter of spiritual succor. The
way they continually hectored and teased, matched wits and good humor, as
they had matched strength and daring in the old fighting-days before the
hospital, was meat and drink to the souls struggling for dominance over
mutilated bodies. United, they were men; separated--Sheila had often
shuddered to think what pitiful, pain-tortured beings they might have
been.

When she returned to the ward the chief was with her, and their combined
arrival brought forth a prolonged, fortissimoed wail shammed forth in good
Gaelic fashion. Larry's great hairy arm shot out, and a vindictive
forefinger was wagged in the direction of the third cot.

"Ye'd best begin with Patsy MacLean this day. He hasn't been laid out
first in a fortnight."

The others, taking the words from Larry's tongue, chorused, "Aye, begin
wi' Patsy, the devil take him!"

"Why the devil? Wouldn't Fritzie do as well?" The chief smiled indulgently
upon them all.

"'Tis a case for the devil, this time. Tell the colonel what you were
putting over us last night," Michael Kenney, lance-corporal, growled
through an undercurrent of chuckle.

Patrick MacLean, the color-sergeant, grinned as he reached out a welcoming
hand to both surgeon and nurse. He was a prime favorite with them, as with
his own lads. When pain wrestled for the upper hand, when things went
wrong, moods turned black, or nights stretched interminably long and
unendurable, Patsy could always turn the trick