came back with the skirt Greg had opened his eyes and looked at me a
little like himself. There is a book in our medicine cupboard at
home called, "Hints on First Aid." Jerry and I used to like to look
at it, and Father said:

"Go ahead; you may need it some day." But neither of us could
remember anything that was at all useful now. I could plainly see
the picture of some queerly-drawn hands doing a "Spanish Windlass,"
but that wouldn't have done poor Greg any good at all. Jerry did
remember that you ought to cut people's clothes and not try to take
them off in the ordinary way, so he took out his knife and ripped up
the sleeve of Greg's jumper and the shoulder-seam of the white
brocaded waistcoat. I don't see how people can stand being Red Cross
nurses in France, for I'm sure I never could be one. Greg's shoulder
was quite awful,--what we could see, for it was almost dark now.
There was nothing at all we dared to do. We couldn't even bathe it,
for there was only sea-water, so I just sat and held Greg's other
hand and patted it. He didn't cry,--I think the hurting was too bad
for that,--but he moaned a little, and sometimes he said, "Hurts,
Chris."

I tried to tell him a story, the way I did when we all had the
measles and he was so much sicker than the rest of us, but he
couldn't listen. So we just sat there in the dark--it was perfectly
dark now and we couldn't see one another at all--and I began to
count the flashes of the Headland light--two long and two short, two
long and two short--till I thought I should scream. Suddenly Jerry
said:

"Are you hungry, Chris?"