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Updated: May 16, 2025
On one side, two cots two feet wide were hinged against the wall, one above another; they reduced the living space to a breadth of three feet. The wall opposite was made of plain plates of steel, and so was the inner end of the cell, but in this, at a man's height from the floor, was a round hole an inch in diameter.
A single blanket was the only bedclothing provided. I had not lain long before I was driven, by an exceedingly offensive smell, to search for a cleaner neighborhood; but I found all the cots, fore and aft, were either occupied or engaged. I immediately returned, and that I might have a dernier ressort, left my shawl in that I had first obtained.
Norton's house, check roll-call was ordered that is, the officer of the day went to the different barracks and ordered the first sergeants to get the men up and call the roll at once, without warning or preparation. In that way it was ascertained if the men were on their cots or out of quarters. But that night every man was "present or accounted for."
They were brought over from the hospital tents and placed on cots out on the little porch, where there was just room to pass between the cots. "Their wounds were very similar in the head and of such a character as to require cool applications to the eyes constantly.
But now went on Gerard to say: Lady, if thou wilt hide thy ways from whomsoever it may be, thou hast happened on no ill way; for though this road be good to ride, it is but a byway through the sheep-walks that folk may drive their wains hereby in the wet season of winter and spring; and for a great way we shall come to but little save the cots of the sheep-carles; scarce a hamlet or two for the space of two days' riding; and on the third day a little town, hight Upham, where are but few folk save at the midsummer wool-fair, which is now gone by.
As I write I see, as he saw, the long familiar ward, the neat cots, the busy orderlies. He waited with the impatience of increasing pain. "Well, Tom," he said, with an effort to appear gay, "here's your chance at last to get even." McGregor made brief reply as he uncovered the wounded joint. Then he said gravely, "A little ether I will get out the ball." "No ether, Tom, I can stand it.
A half dozen of us reached there in time to throw ourselves against the gate that was just closing, and the next instant I fell sprawling inside the barrack yard. We ran straight for the long room which faced the street, and as we came in at one end of it the men behind the cots fired a frightened volley at us and fled out at the other.
As the gangs came in day and night, under the escort of squads of police, they stowed away in unused workrooms and storerooms, and in the car sheds, crowded so closely together that the cots touched. In some places they would use the same room for eating and sleeping, and at night the men would put their cots upon the tables, to keep away from the swarms of rats.
As we dipped our heads to pass under the porch, we went out of the glare of the open air into the subdued and gentle light of the tent. At once a coolness like that of evening displaced the warmth of the afternoon. And a strange quiet fell about our ears. It seemed to me that the eight cots were empty.
The bystanders were not seduced by this entertainment into approval of the firemen's idleness and inquired sarcastically why they had left their cots behind or if they thought they were still on WPA? The men remained impervious until the chief jumped out of his red roadster and surveyed the scene napoleonically. "Thought somebody was pulling a rib," he explained to no one in particular.
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