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Once between the blankets, conversation at first waxed rather than waned. The Night Wardmaster, whose duty it was to make the round of the orderlies' huts, disapproved of conversation after Lights-Out, and was apt to say so, loudly and menacingly, when he surprised us by popping his head in at the door.
Now don't deny it, for I saw you outside myself. I'll send the Wardmaster to the guard-house for that." "But, Doctor, it wasn't his fault," gasped the sick man, painfully. "I begged so hard to go out that he couldn't refuse me. It was so hot in here and smelled so badly, that I felt I should die unless I got a breath of fresh air."
Martine felt that he could not jeopardize his hard-won victory by delay, which was as torturing as the time intervening between a desperate surgical operation and the knowledge that it is inevitable. After seeing that his cousin made a good breakfast, he sought a private interview with the wardmaster.
'Let our statistics speak for themselves; and we make no claim to be more long-suffering than our neighbours. Gibbs, Mr. Four started, but one left us early in the proceedings. We have had six nurses, five dressers, one wardmaster, one washerman, and eighteen orderlies, or thirty-two in all, who actually came in contact with the sick.
But well the Night Wardmaster always departed in the long run.... And then uprose, between bed and bed, those unconclusive debates in which the masculine soul delighteth: Theology; Woman; Victuals; Politics; Art; the Press; Sport; Marriage; Money and sometimes even The War; likewise the purely local topics of Sisters and their Absurdities; Our Officers; The Other Huts; What the Sergeant-Major Said; Why V.A.D.'s can't replace Male Orderlies; What this Morning's Operations Looked Like; Whether an Officers' Ward or a Men's Ward is the nicer; Who Deserves Stripes; C.O.'s Parade and its Terrors; Advantages of Volunteering for Night Duty; The Cushy Job of being in charge of a Sham Lunacy Case; Other Cushy Jobs less cushy than They Sounded; and so forth; until at last protests began to be voiced by the wearier folk who wanted silence.
Out of the six nurses, one has died and three others have had enteric. Of the five dressers, two have had severe enteric. The wardmaster has spent a fortnight in bed with veldt sores. The washerman has enteric. Of the eighteen orderlies, one is dead, and eight others are down with enteric. So that out of a total of thirty-four we have had seventeen severe casualties fifty per cent. in nine weeks.
"Don't you " and Martine's voice grew husky "don't you remember Helen Kemble?" "A woman?" "Yes." "Never yeared on her. I only reckerlect people I've seen in hospitals. Women come foolin' roun' some days, but Lor'! I kin beat any on 'em teekin' keer o' the patients; en wen they dies, I kin lay 'em out. You ast the wardmaster ef I kant lay out a stiff with the best o' 'em." "That will do.
Many read no novels, swore less, were more silent, orderly, and cheerful, as if the Lord were an invisible Wardmaster, who went his rounds but once a week, and must find all things at their best.
"Please do so, and remember that I could not endure to have my life impoverished again." Late the following evening, Martine inquired his way to the bedside of his cousin, and was glad indeed to find him convalescent. His own experienced eyes, together with the statement of the sick man and wardmaster, convinced him that the danger point was well passed.
"Silence!" thundered the Surgeon; "I'll have no talking back to me. Steward, send that Wardmaster to the guard-house for disobedience of orders. No. 7, you refused to take your medicine yesterday. Steward, double his prescription, and if he shows the least resistance to taking it, have the nurses hold him and force it down his throat. Do you hear? There, why don't you hold still?"
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