Corporal Sam and Other StoriesQuiller-Couch, Arthur
General
Corporal Sam and Other Stories
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Short stories, English
It may have happened in the struggle. Or again it may have happened
when they were hoisted aboard and lay, for a minute or so, side by
side on the deck. Both men were insensible; so far gone indeed that
the doctor looked serious as he and his helpers began to induce
artificial respiration.
The young third officer 'came round' after five minutes of this;
but, strangely enough, in the end he was found to be suffering from a
severer shock than Mr Markham, on whom the doctor operated for a full
twenty minutes before a flutter of the eyelids rewarded him.
They were carried away--the third officer, in a state of collapse, to
his modest berth; Mr Markham to his white-and-gold deck-cabin.
On his way thither Mr Markham protested cheerily that he saw no
reason for all this fuss; he was as right now, or nearly as right, as
the Bank.
CHAPTER III.
How's Rendal getting on?'
Captain Holditch, skipper of the _Carnatic_, put this question next
morning to the doctor, and was somewhat surprised by the answer.
'Oh, Rendal's all right. That is to say, he will be all right.
Just now he's suffering from shock. My advice--supposing, of course,
you can spare him--is to pack him straightaway off to his people on a
week's leave. In a week he'll be fit as a fiddle.' The doctor
paused and added, ''Wish I could feel as easy about the millionaire.'
'Why, what's the matter with him? 'Struck me he pulled round
wonderfully, once you'd brought him to. He talked as cheery as a
grig.
'H'm--yes,' said the doctor; 'he has been talking like that ever
since, only he hasn't been talking sense. Calls me names for keeping
him in bed, and wants to get out and repair that stanchion. I told
him it was mended. "Nothing on earth is the matter with me," he
insisted, till I had to quiet him down with bromide. By the way, did
you send off any account of the accident?'
'By wireless? No; I took rather particular pains to stop that--gets
into the papers, only frightens the family and friends, who conclude
things to be ten times worse than they are. Plenty of time at
Southampton. Boat-express'll take him home ahead of the scare?'
'Lives in Park Lane, doesn't he?--that big corner house like a
game-pie? . . . Ye-es, you were thoughtful, as usual. . . . Only some
one might have been down to the docks to meet him. 'Wish I knew his
doctor's address. Well, never mind--I'll fix him up so that he
reaches Park Lane, anyway.'
'He ought to do something for Rendal,' mused Captain Holditch.
'He will, you bet, when his head is right--that's if a millionaire's
head is ever right,' added the doctor, who held radical opinions on
the distribution of wealth.
The captain ignored this. He never talked politics even when ashore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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