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Updated: April 30, 2025
Charlie Thurkow and I were the only two doctors on the spot, and before help could reach us we should probably all be dead or cured. There was no shirking now. Charlie and I were at work night and day, and in the course of thirty-six hours Charlie got interested in it.
She was quite fearless not with dash, but with the steady fearlessness that comes from an ever-present sense of duty, which is the best. She was kind and tender, but she was a little absent. In spirit she was nursing at Capoo; with us she was only in the body. When Charlie Thurkow heard that she had gone into ward number four, he displayed a sudden, singular anger.
The next morning rose gloomily, as if the day was awakening unrefreshed by a feverish sleep. The heat had been intense all night, and we could look for nothing but an intensification of it when the sun rose with a tropical aggressiveness. I wanted to get my reports filled in before lying down to snatch a little rest, and was still at work when Charlie Thurkow came in to relieve me.
As I walked back towards the hospital the brigadier came running behind me, and caught me up as I stepped in by the window. I had neither time nor inclination just then to tell him that I had news from Capoo. The Sikh no doubt brought official news which would reach their destination in due course. And in the mean time Charlie Thurkow was dying.
When she came into the room I was writing a note to the brigadier. I watched her face as she came towards us. There was only distress upon it nothing else. Even women even beautiful women grow callous; thank Heaven! Charlie Thurkow gave a long sigh of relief when she came. My note was duly sent to the brigadier, and five minutes afterwards I went out on to the verandah to speak to him.
"It's not fit for her," he said. "How could you do it?" And I noticed that, so far as lay in his power, he kept the worst cases away from number four. It occasionally happens in life that duty is synonymous with inclination; not often, of course, but occasionally. I twisted inclination round into duty, and put Elsie to night work, while Charlie Thurkow kept the day watches.
In Europe it is a different matter. The writing of those days would be unpleasant to me; the reading would be still less pleasant to the reader. Brigadier-General Thurkow rose to the occasion, as we all expected him to do. It is one thing to send a man to a distant danger, and quite another to go with him into a danger which is close at hand.
The vague message given to "any one" by Fitz as he rode by my side that night only a week before, although it seemed to be months that message was intended for Elsie. It referred to something that had gone before, of which I had no knowledge. "Because he told me so," I answered. And then we went on with our work. Charlie Thurkow was quite right. I knew that all along. It was not fit for her.
Only one interest thoroughly aroused him only one train of thought received the full gift of his mind. This one absorbing interest was his son Charlie, and it says much for Charlie Thurkow that we did not hate him. The brigadier had lost his wife years before. All that belonged to ancient history to the old Company days before our time.
Thurkow was junior. This might prove to be Thurkow's opportunity, or the other thing. We all knew that he would be willing enough to go; nay, he would be eager. But Thurkow's father was in command, which made all the difference. While we were thinking over these things an orderly appeared at the mess-room door. "Brigadier would like to see you, sir," he said to me.
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