LITMIR.BIZ

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on battlefields where others reaped advancement and glory.

      “I want you to go at once and see Feraud. You know Lieut. Feraud? He lives down the second street. It’s but a step from here.”

      “What’s the matter with him?”

      “Wounded.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Sure!” cried D’Hubert. “I come from there.”

      “That’s amusing,” said the elderly surgeon. Amusing was his favourite word; but the expression of his face when he pronounced it never corresponded. He was a stolid man. “Come in,” he added. “I’ll get ready in a moment.”

      “Thanks! I will. I want to wash my hands in your room.”

      Lieut. D’Hubert found the surgeon occupied in unscrewing his flute, and packing the pieces methodically in a case. He turned his head.

      “Water there — in the corner. Your hands do want washing.”

      “I’ve stopped the bleeding,” said Lieut. D’Hubert. “But you had better make haste. It’s rather more than ten minutes ago, you know.”

      The surgeon did not hurry his movements.

      “What’s the matter? Dressing came off? That’s amusing. I’ve been at work in the hospital all day but I’ve been told this morning by somebody that he had come off without a scratch.”

      “Not the same duel probably,” growled moodily Lieut. D’Hubert, wiping his hands on a coarse towel.

      “Not the same. . . . What? Another. It would take the very devil to make me go out twice in one day.” The surgeon looked narrowly at Lieut. D’Hubert. “How did you come by that scratched face? Both sides, too — and symmetrical. It’s amusing.”

      “Very!” snarled Lieut. D’Hubert. “And you will find his slashed arm amusing, too. It will keep both of you amused for quite a long time.”

      The doctor was mystified and impressed by the brusque bitterness of Lieut. D’Hubert’s tone. They left the house together, and in the street he was still more mystified by his conduct.

      “Aren’t you coming with me?” he asked.

      “No,” said Lieut. D’Hubert. “You can find the house by yourself. The front door will be standing open very likely.”

      “All right. Where’s his room?”

      “Ground floor. But you had better go right through and look in the garden first.”

      This astonishing piece of information made the surgeon go off without further parley. Lieut. D’Hubert regained his quarters nursing a hot and uneasy indignation. He dreaded the chaff of his comrades almost as much as the anger of his superiors. The truth was confoundedly grotesque and embarrassing, even putting aside the irregularity of the combat itself, which made it come abominably near a criminal offence. Like all men without much imagination, a faculty which helps the process of reflective thought, Lieut. D’Hubert became frightfully harassed by the obvious aspects of his predicament. He was certainly glad that he had not killed Lieut. Feraud outside all rules, and without the regular witnesses proper to such a transaction. Uncommonly glad. At the same time he felt as though he would have liked to wring his neck for him without ceremony.

      He was still under the sway of these contradictory sentiments when the surgeon amateur of the flute came to see him. More than three days had elapsed. Lieut. D’Hubert was no longer officier d’ordonnance to the general commanding the division. He had been sent back to his regiment. And he was resuming his connection with the soldiers’ military family by being shut up in close confinement, not at his own quarters in town, but in a room in the barracks. Owing to the gravity of the incident, he was forbidden to see any one. He did not know what had happened, what was being said, or what was being thought. The arrival of the surgeon was a most unexpected thing to the worried captive. The amateur of the flute began by explaining that he was there only by a special favour of the colonel.

      “I represented to him that it would be only fair to let you have some authentic news of your adversary,” he continued. “You’ll be glad to hear he’s getting better fast.”

      Lieut. D’Hubert’s face exhibited no conventional signs of gladness. He continued to walk the floor of the dusty bare room.

      “Take this chair, doctor,” he mumbled.

      The doctor sat down.

      “This affair is variously appreciated — in town and in the army. In fact, the diversity of opinions is amusing.”

      “Is it!” mumbled Lieut. D’Hubert, tramping steadily from wall to wall. But within himself he marvelled that there could be two opinions on the matter. The surgeon continued.

      “Of course, as the real facts are not known —”

      “I should have thought,” interrupted D’Hubert, “that the fellow would have put you in possession of facts.”

      “He said something,” admitted the other, “the first time I saw him. And, by the by, I did find him in the garden. The thump on the back of his head had made him a little incoherent then. Afterwards he was rather reticent than otherwise.”

      “Didn’t think he would have the grace to be ashamed!” mumbled D’Hubert, resuming his pacing while the doctor murmured, “It’s very amusing. Ashamed! Shame was not exactly his frame of mind. However, you may look at the matter otherwise.”

      “What are you talking about? What matter?” asked D’Hubert, with a sidelong look at the heavy-faced, grey-haired figure seated on a wooden chair.

      “Whatever it is,” said the surgeon a little impatiently, “I don’t want to pronounce any opinion on your conduct —”

      “By heavens, you had better not!” burst out D’Hubert.

      “There! — there! Don’t be so quick in flourishing the sword. It doesn’t pay in the long run. Understand once for all that I would not carve any of you youngsters except with the tools of my trade. But my advice is good. If you go on like this you will make for yourself an ugly reputation.”

      “Go on like what?” demanded Lieut. D’Hubert, stopping short, quite startled. “I! — I! — make for myself a reputation. . . . What do you imagine?”

      “I told you I don’t wish to judge of the rights and wrongs of this incident. It’s not my business. Nevertheless —”

      “What on earth has he been telling you?” interrupted Lieut. D’Hubert, in a sort of awed scare.

      “I told you already, that at first, when I picked him up in the garden, he was incoherent. Afterwards he was naturally reticent. But I gather at least that he could not help himself.”

      “He couldn’t?” shouted Lieut. D’Hubert in a great voice. Then, lowering his tone impressively, “And what about me? Could I help myself?”

      The surgeon stood up. His thoughts were running upon the flute, his constant companion with a consoling voice. In the vicinity of field ambulances, after twenty-four hours’ hard work, he had been known to trouble with its sweet sounds the horrible stillness of battlefields, given over to silence and the dead. The solacing hour of his daily life was approaching, and in peace time he held on to the minutes as a miser to his hoard.

      “Of course! — of course!” he said, perfunctorily. “You would think so. It’s amusing. However, being perfectly neutral and friendly to you both, I have consented to deliver his message to you. Say that I am humouring an invalid if you like. He wants you to know that this affair is by no means at an end. He intends to send you his seconds directly he has regained his strength — providing, of course, the army is not in the field at that time.”

      “He intends, does he? Why, certainly,” spluttered Lieut. D’Hubert

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