'Very possibly. Corporal Wilkins watched you, and shouted after you, as you staggered away; but you took no notice, and then, I hear, although you were half dead, you did some rescuing work.'

'Why, of course you did, you know you did.'

'All right then, you didn't,' and the doctor laughed again. 'There now, you're comfortable now, so be quiet. I'll tell some one to bring you some soup.'

'But I say, I--I want to know. Is Captain Springfield all right?'

The doctor laughed again. 'I thought you didn't do any rescuing work?'

'I didn't,' I replied, 'it was the other man who did that; but is Springfield all right?'

'He's very bad. He _may_ pull through, but I doubt it.'

'Private Edgecumbe,--what of him? He did everything, you know.'

'The fellow's a miracle, from what I can hear. No, he wasn't wounded. The man who told me about it said that he might have a charmed life. He's all right, anyhow. Now be quiet, I must be off.'

For the next few days, although, as I was told, I was by no means a bad case, I knew what it was to be a shattered mass of nerves. A man with a limb shot away, or who has had shrapnel or bullets taken from his body, can laugh and be gay,--I have seen that again and again. But one suffering from shell shock goes through agonies untold. I am not going to _try_ to describe it, but I shall never forget what I suffered. As soon as I was fit, I was moved to another hospital nearer the base, and there, as fortune would have it, I met Edgecumbe's colonel. By this time I was able to think coherently, and my spells of nerves were becoming rarer and less violent.

'Yes, my boy, you are a case for home,' said Colonel Gray. 'You are a lucky beggar to get out of it so well. I was talking with your C.O. yesterday; you are going back to England at once. I won't tell you what else he told me about you; your nerves are not strong enough.'

Colonel Gray laughed. 'No, it's all the other way. Don't your ears tingle?'

'Not a tingle,' I said. 'But what about Edgecumbe?'

'He's a friend of yours, isn't he?' asked the colonel.

'He's a wonderful chap. I've had my eye on him for a long time, and I haven't been able to make him out. What really aroused my interest in him was the way--but of course you know all about that, you were in that show. I never laughed so much in my life as when those Boches were brought in. Of course you know he's to get his decoration? It couldn't be helped after that Springfield affair.'