stage of daily change of gauze and bandage had arrived, he always liked
Sister Elizabeth to do his dressings. Sister's hands were much more
gentle than mine, and Shelley always associated me with pain, little
knowing that, if a dressing is to be well and properly done, it is
always inseparable from a certain amount of suffering. But I saw through
his blarney, and he was added to the list of those who preferred
sister's hands to my attentions.

And there was Rose, a mere lad, who had also lost a leg from wounds; he
lay awake at night, though not in great pain, during the process of
breaking him of the morphia habit. When I pretended not to hear his
little moan, as I made my evening round, he tugged at his mosquito
curtain to show that he was awake. But asperin and bromide and a nightly
drink of hot brandy and water soon broke off this habit. After that it
was easy to cut off the alcohol by degrees as he grew to like his eggs
in milk the more. He, too, always had some reason why Sister should do
his dressings, and I think that Sister Elizabeth and he plotted together
that I should have some other more important job to do when Rose's turn
came to go upon the table.

Then there was Parsons, the printer, who in times of peace produced the
_Rand Daily Mail_; he had also lost a leg and he surprised me with his
special knowledge of the various qualities of paper.

In the corner of the verandah that had been turned into an extra ward by
screening it off with native reed-fencing was Gilfillan, the most
perfect patient. Propping his foot against the wall to correct the
foot-drop that division of the nerve of his leg had caused, he had
passed many sleepless nights in his long and wearisome convalescence.