I won't swallow it. I won't! I swear
before Heaven I won't! Just a teaspoonful! Please!... Oh! I'm dying of
thirst.... Only a drop.... I won't swallow it this time.... There's five
pounds in my pocket." He would gurgle and groan pitifully for a moment.
Then in a voice, astoundingly loud, but thick with blood, he would
shout, quaveringly: "Orderly, blast you, you ----, give me some water, or
I'll--"

Sad to say, there came a time when the Subaltern could bear it no
longer. His own troubles and the entreaties of the other unnerved him.

"Give him water! Chuck it at him! In a bucket!" he shouted in a frenzy.
"Let the poor wretch die happy, anyway."

The Corporal in charge came over to him.

"You might get me some milk, Corporal," he said.

"For you, sir?"

"Oh no! You ----, to water the plants with, of course!"

"I was only asking, sir."

"All right, Corp'ral. Can't you see I'm a little upset this morning?"

* * * * *

They carried him on to the Clearing Hospital in a motor Ambulance, and
deposited him in the hall of a little estaminet that had been turned
into an Officer's Hospital.

A Doctor and Sister were conversing in low tones outside a closed door.

"I'm afraid there are all the symptoms of enteric," she was saying.

Neither of them took the slightest notice of him. But he was getting
used to being carried about and never spoken to, like a piece of
furniture. And the Sister entranced him. The Clearing Hospitals were the
nearest places to the fighting-line that women could aspire to. He had
not seen an English lady since leaving England. And her waist pleased
him. Such few French peasant women had any waists at all. And her voice
was higher-pitched; more intellectual, if less poetic.

When the two of them had quite finished discussing their "case" she
called for an Orderly, and without so much as looking at him, said,
"Put that one in there," indicating another door. Another Orderly was
fetched, and the painful business of hauling him off the stretcher on to
a bed began once more.

The novelty of his surroundings occupied his mind. The bed was soft, and
his spine ceased to ache. A feeling almost akin to contentment stole
over him, as they left him in the clean, cool bed. His companion without
the throat had been put in another room. There was only one more bed in
this one, and the occupant was sleeping peacefully.

About four o'clock in the afternoon he heard the fai