Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/520

 Roland bent his head over the scrap of paper again.

"Go on," he said hoarsely, and Vickers went on, panting out the words with an eagerness which proved the sincerity of his affection. The letter had regard to the disposition of certain sums of money for which the voucher had been destroyed by fire during the siege of Philipville two days previously. It was scarcely ended when a bugle sounded from the camp.

"That's the sentinel's recall," said Roland. "I must get in. I'll forward the letter the first chance I get."

He rose; Vickers, with a dumb agony of grateful entreaty in his face, feebly held up his left hand—the right arm was shattered. After a moment's hesitation Roland bent and took it.

"Here," he said, "take this." He dropped his flask beside him. "Keep your heart up, perhaps you ain't as bad as you think. I'll see if I can get help for you."

Tears started to the wounded wretch's eyes.

"Rose had better have taken you, I guess," he said. Roland turned sharply away.

"I'll be back as quickly as I can," he said, and ploughed his way back into camp without a single backward glance. Coming to a large tent, the only one in the camp, roughly run up as a temporary hospital, he passed between two rows of prostrate figures, sunk in the sleep of exhaustion or tossing in agony, to where a man in the uniform of an army surgeon was bending, pipe in mouth, over the body of a patient.

"I want to speak to you when you've finished, Ned."

The surgeon nodded without raising his eyes, completed his task, ran his bloodstained fingers wearily through his hair, and turned to Roland with a yawn and a shiver.

"That's the last of 'em," he said; "I've been at it since nightfall, and I'm dead beat. Cut it short, old man; we start in an hour, and I meant to get a wink of sleep."

"I'm afraid you'll have to do without it," said Roland. "Do you remember Jim Vickers?"

"Jim Vickers?" repeated the surgeon. "Oh, yes! The man who married Rose Bishop."

Roland winced, and nodded.

"He's out there, shot in the arm and leg. Says he's dying. He didn't know me, and asked me to write a word for him to Rose—to his wife. I want you to come and have a look at him."

The surgeon shrugged, with a half yawn.