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 interrupted so rudely? Really, Val Moray, I shall report your behaviour to the Colonel. You're not respectful to your officer. You're always forgetting that you are a private." "Always," I replied, with what was, I fear, a very pitiful smile, for my companion looked at me very sympathetically and shook his head. "Poor old chap!" he said; "I am sorry for you. There, he shall be disrespectful to his officer when he isn't on duty. I say, old chap, I wish you and I were far away on the veldt shooting lions again. It's far better fun than fighting wild Boers." "What a poor old joke!" I said. "Best I can do under these untoward circumstances, dear boy," he said. "Yes, it's a `wusser.' I wish I could say something good that would make you laugh. But to `return to our muttons,' as the French say. About being so weak. You and I have no business to shut up like a couple of rickety two-foot rules when we are set up on end. It's disgusting, and I'm sure it's old Duncombe's fault." "No, you're not," I said. "Well, I say I am, just by way of argument. It's all wrong, and I've been lying here and thinking out the reason. I've got it." "I got it without any thinking out at all," I said.