twelve hours with his pulse stronger and temperature lower than when
they received him. Each was sure she had the secret of keeping him
alive.

You discovered the spirit of the man when you heard him wandering in
delirium. All night in the shadowy ward with its hooded lamps, he
would be giving orders for the comfort of his men. Sometimes he'd be
proposing to go forward himself to a place where a company was having
a hot time; apparently one of his officers was trying to dissuade
him. "Danger be damned," he'd exclaim in a wonderfully strong
voice. "It'll buck 'em up to see me. Splendid chaps--splendid chaps!"

About dawn he was usually supposed to be sinking, but he'd rallied
again by the time the day-sister arrived. "Still here," he'd smile in
a triumphant kind of whisper, as though bluffing death was a pastime.

One afternoon a padre came to visit him. As he was leaving he bent
above the pillow. We learnt afterwards that this was what he had said,
"If the good Lord lets you, I hope you'll get better."

We saw the Colonel raise himself up on his elbow. His weak voice shook
with anger. "Neither God nor the Devil has anything to do with
it. I'm going to get well." Then, as the nurse came hurrying to him,
he sank back.

When I left the Base Hospital for Blighty he was still holding his
own. I have never heard what happened to him, but should not be at all
surprised to meet him one day in the trenches with a wooden leg, still
leading his splendid chaps. Death can't kill men of such heroic
courage.