The First Canadians in France

"I'm afraid he's not quite himself at present, your ladyship," the nurse protested, scarcely able to repress a smile.

Stewart opened his eyes once more and remarked coolly as Lady Danby hastened to another patient: "No – not quite all there – part shot away, excuse me." He then closed his eyes again and lay still until the orderlies removed him to his bed.

The Medical Officer came to examine him, and the nurse cut away the dressings from his side. He inspected the wound very carefully and finally said:

"Rifle bullet wound through the lower lobe of left lung. It might have been worse."

"How long do you think I have to live?" Stewart enquired, with some anxiety.

"To live?" cried the surgeon, with a laugh. "About thirty or forty years, with luck."

"What!" shouted Stewart, as he half sat up in bed with a quick jerk. "Do you mean to tell me I have the ghost of a chance?"

"You'll have a splendid chance if you keep quiet and don't shout like that. You'd better lie down again," the surgeon commanded, not unkindly.

"But, good Lord," Stewart protested animatedly, "here I've been trying to die for three days, – every one encouraged me to do it; and after passing through four surgeons' hands, you're the first to tell me I have a chance. It's wonderful. Now I will live – I've made up my mind."

"Who said you would die?"

"First the Chaplain at the Field Ambulance where they carried me in – more dead than alive. He came and shook his head over me. He was a good chap and meant well, I'm sure – he looked very dismal. I asked him if I would die, and he answered pityingly: 'A man shot through the stomach can't live, my poor fellow. Shall I pray for you?' I told him to go as far as he liked – he got on his knees and prayed like the deuce."

"But you said you were wounded three days ago," the surgeon remarked. "What kept you so long from reaching here?"

"I lay one whole day in front of the trench where I was wounded. The stretcher-bearers, against my wishes, came out to bring me in – just as the man at my head stooped down they shot him through the brain. I heard the bullet go 'chuck,' – he fell stone dead across me. I ordered the others back at once – that they must leave me until night. They refused to go at first, but I commanded them again to get back – at last when they saw I was determined, they went. Poor chaps! I know they felt worse at leaving me than as if they had been shot down."

During this conversation the surgeon had dressed the wound, and now, admonishing his patient that he must not talk any more, left him for the night. In the morning Lady Danby came to his cot and marvelled at his bright face and cheery smile.

"You're feeling better this morning, I see," she remarked brightly.

"Much the better for seeing you, madam," Stewart returned, with his customary chivalry; "and one does recover rapidly with such excellent nursing and care."

"I'm afraid we're going to lose you to-day," she replied, with a tinge of regret in her tone. "The Canadians insist on claiming you as their own, and I suppose we must let you go."

"I must admit," he returned, "that I am sorry to leave such congenial company – come and see me sometimes, won't you, please?"

Lady Danby smiled. "When I first saw you last night, I thought I shouldn't care to see you again – but you aren't really quite as dreadful as I thought. Some day soon I'll run in to see how you are getting on."

A few hours later, when Stewart was safely ensconced in our hospital, he observed reminiscently: "I'm awfully glad to be among old friends once more – but those English hospitals are not without their attractions!"

CHAPTER XVI

He was a mere boy, scarce nineteen years of age, a sub-lieutenant in the Territorials, and a medallist in philosophy from Oxford.

Who would have guessed that this frail, delicate-looking Welsh youth with the fair hair and grey eyes was gifted with an intellect of which all England might be proud? He might have passed unnoticed had one not spoken to him, and, having spoken, had seen the handsome face light up with fascinating vivacity as he replied.

One cannot attempt to recollect or depict the mystic workings of his marvellous mind; for, once aroused, gems of thought, clear cut and bright as scintillations from a star, dropped from his lips and left his hearers steeped in wonder.

It was then, you may well believe, no ordinary youth who walked into the hospital, with mud-covered clothes and his kit still strapped to his back. He dropped the kit upon the floor of his room, and, sinking wearily into a chair, brushed back with his hand the unruly hair which sought to droop over his high forehead.

His commanding officer, who had accompanied him to the hospital, had taken me aside, before I entered the room, and had told me privately his views about the boy.

"You look tired," I remarked, as I noted the weary droop of the head.

He smiled quickly as he looked up and said: "Done up, I think. Those six months in Malta were a bit too much for me."

"But you have been home before coming to France, have you not?" I asked him.

"Home!" he cried in surprise. "No such luck! We had expected a week or two in England after our return, but it's off. There were four thousand of us in Malta, but we're all here now, at Etaples, and liable to be sent to the trenches any moment. When I stood on the cliffs at Wimereux yesterday and saw the dear old shores across the Channel – " He stopped suddenly, overpowered by some strong emotion. "I'd be a better soldier farther off. Between homesickness and the pain in my chest, I'm about all in."

He did look tired and faint, and even the pink rays of the setting sun failed to tint the pallor of his cheeks. I told him I would send the orderly to help him undress and that he must get into bed at once.

When I returned shortly and examined his chest, I found that he was suffering from a touch of pleurisy; there were, too, traces of more serious trouble in the lungs.

"What do you think of me, Major?" he enquired with a quizzical smile, when I had completed the examination. "Anything interesting inside?"

"Interesting enough to call for a long rest," I replied. "We'll have to keep you here a while and later send you home to England."

"My O.C., who by the way is my uncle too, and a medical man, insisted on my coming here," he remarked. "He says I'm not strong enough for trench life. But the old boy – bless his heart! – loves me like a son, and I'm morally certain he wants to pack me off for fear I'll get killed. I simply can't go home, you know, until I've done my bit. It would be jolly weak of me, wouldn't it?"

"You might go for a time," I replied guardedly, "and return later on when you get stronger."

He started to laugh, but a quick stabbing pain in the chest caught him halfway, and he stopped short with a twisted smile as he exclaimed:

"I believe the old chap has been talking to you too! You're all in league to get me out of France."

This was so close to the truth that I could not contradict him, but shook my head in partial negative. His uncle felt, as I too came to feel later, that the loss to the world of such a brilliant mind and one with such potentialities would not be compensated for by the little good its master could accomplish physically in the trenches.

"After all," he argued, "how much poorer would Wales be if I were gone? The hole would soon be filled."

"I can't agree with you," I answered slowly; "your life is more important to others than you think, and you would risk it in a field for which you are not physically fitted. You have overdrawn your brain account at the Bank of Nature, and flesh is paying up. You must go home until the note is settled."

"Sounds rational but horribly mathematical – and I always hated mathematics. Hope I'll be able," he continued mischievously, "to repay the 'interest' you and uncle are taking in me."

"We want you to consider the matter philosophically," I said, "not mathematically."

"That's better," he replied, with his usual bright smile; "philosophy comes more natural to me. True, it savours of Euclid, but I can forgive it that offence; it has so many virtues."

He remained silent a few moments, thinking, and then asked me suddenly: "If I go home, how soon can I get back to France?"

"I hope you won't return here," I replied gravely; "it would be suicidal, and, flattery aside, your life is too valuable to be sacrificed over here."

"Perhaps you are right," he murmured pensively, as though we were discussing a third party whose life interested him only in an impersonal manner, and without exhibiting the slightest self-consciousness or vanity. "It might be better if I stayed at home. I admit," he continued more brightly, "I have a selfish desire to live. I am so young and have seen so little of this great big interesting world and I want so much to know what it all means. Still I would far sooner die than feel myself a slacker or a 'skrimshanker.'"

"No one will mistake you for either," I returned warmly. "Your lungs are not strong, and I fear if you remain here in the cold and wet you will not recover."

"There's so much in life to live for," he cried animatedly; "besides, I'm a little dubious of the after world. For a little longer I should like to learn what tangible pleasures this world offers, rather than tempt the unsubstantiated promises of a future state."

"But surely you believe in an after life?" I enquired, in some surprise.