e
Colonel did was to summon the doctor, who saw to our injuries, while
Denham unburdened himself of our adventures, my head throbbing so that I
could not have given a connected narrative had I tried.

Denham protested stoutly afterwards that there was no need for the
doctor's proposal that we should be sent to the hospital to be carried
into effect, and appealed to the Colonel.

"Look at us both, sir," he said. "Don't you think that after a good
night's sleep we shall both be fit for duty in the morning?"

"Well, Mr Denham, to speak candidly," was the reply, "you both look as
dilapidated as you can possibly be; so you had better obey the doctor's
orders. I give you both up for the present."

Denham groaned, and I felt very glad when a couple of the Sergeant's
guard clasped wrists to make, me a seat; and as soon as I had passed my
arms over their shoulders their officer gave the word, and we were both
marched off to the sheltered hospital, where I was soon after plunged in
a heavy stupor, full of dreams about falling down black pits, swinging
spider-like, at the end of ropes which I somehow spun by drawing long
threads of my brains out of a hole in the back of my head, something
after the fashion of a silkworm making a cocoon.

Then complete insensibility came on, and I don't remember anything. But
on the day following Denham and I lay pretty close together, talking,
and looking up at the sky just above, one of the wagon-tilt curtains
being thrown back.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

A HOSPITAL VISITOR.

"Hang being in hospital!" Denham said over and over again. "I seem to
be always in hospital. There never was such an unlucky beggar."

I sighed deeply.

"It is miserable work," I said.

"Yes; and it seems so absurd," said Denham. "There's something wrong
about it."

"Of course," I said; "we're wounded, and suffering from the shock of
what we've gone through."

"Gammon!" said Denham. "That wouldn't knock us up as it has. We both
got awful toppers on the skull; but that wouldn't have made us so groggy
on the legs that we couldn't stand."

"Oh, that's the weakness," I replied.

"My grandmother! It's your weakness to say so. We're made of too good
stuff for that. Why, you were as bad as I was when the hospital orderly
washed us. Bah! How I do hate being washed by a man!"

"Better than nothing," I said. "We can't have women-nurses."

"No," said Denham. "But what was I saying when you interru