looks like we're all going to die out here."

"I know it's a little gloomy. But don't you shame me before these
English stewards."

"I won't do it again, sir," he promised.

When the medical inspection was over, Claude took the Doctor down
to see Fanning, who had been coughing and wheezing all night and
hadn't got out of his berth. The examination was short. The
Doctor knew what was the matter before he put the stethoscope on
him. "It's pneumonia, both lungs," he said when they came out
into the corridor. "I have one case in the hospital that will die
before morning."

"What can you do for him, Doctor?"

"You see how I'm fixed; close onto two hundred men sick, and one
doctor. The medical supplies are wholly inadequate. There's not
castor oil enough on this boat to keep the men clean inside. I'm
using my own drugs, but they won't last through an epidemic like
this. I can't do much for Lieutenant Fanning. You can, though, if
you'll give him the time. You can take better care of him right
here than he could get in the hospital. We haven't an empty bed
there."

Claude found Victor Morse and told him he had better get a berth
in one of the other staterooms. When Victor left with his
belongings, Fanning stared after him. "Is he going?"

"Yes. It's too crowded in here, if you've got to stay in bed."

"Glad of it. His stories are too raw for me. I'm no sissy, but
that fellow's a regular Don Quixote."

Claude laughed. "You mustn't talk. It makes you cough."

"Where's the Virginian?"

"Who, Bird?" Claude asked in astonishment,--Fanning had stood
beside him at Bird's funeral. "Oh, he's gone, too. You sleep if
you can."

After dinner Doctor Trueman came in and showed Claude how to give
his patient an alcohol bath. "It's simply a question of whether
you can keep up his strength. Don't try any of this greasy food
they serve here. Give him a raw egg beaten up in the juice of an
orange every two hours, night and day. Waken him out of his sleep
when it's time, don't miss a single two-hour period. I'll write
an order to your table steward, and you can beat the eggs up here
in your cabin. Now I must go to the hospital. It's wonderful what
those band boys are doing there. I begin to take some pride in
the place. That big German has been asking for you. He's in a
very bad way."

As there were no nurses on board, the Kansas band had taken over
the hospital. They had been trained for stretcher and first aid
work, and when