But the Kid was not to be put off by laughter. "I tell you it happened
in this very dug-out," he cried excitedly. "She killed the swine in
the doorway there, and then she killed herself. This is where she
fell, Doc, just where you're lying, and her head hit the wall there.
Look, there's a board there, nailed over the wall--where her head went.
Don't laugh, you fool! don't laugh--it happened. I dreamed it. I know
that now; but it happened for all that--before the big advance. I tell
you she had light golden hair--ah! look." The Doctor had prised off
the board, and there on the wall an ominous red stain showed dull in
the candlelight. Slowly the Doctor bent down and picked up something
with his fingers. Getting up he laid it on the table. And when the
officers of B Company had looked at it, the laughter ceased. It was a
little wisp of light golden hair--and the end was thick and clotted.
"To-morrow, Kid, you can tell us the yarn," said the Doctor quietly.
"Just now you're going to have a quarter-grain of sleep dope and go to
bed again."
* * * * * *
The following evening the officers of B Company, less the Kid, who was
out, sat round the table and talked.
"What do you make of it, Doc?" asked the Company Commander. "Do you
really think there is anything in the Kid's yarn? I mean, we know he
dreamed it--but do you think it's true? I suppose that tired as he was
he would be in a receptive mood for his imagination to run riot."
For a long while the Doctor puffed stolidly at his pipe without
answering. Then he leaned forward and put his hand in his pocket.
"Imagination, you say. Do you call that imagination?" He produced the
lock of hair from a matchbox. "Further, do you call that imagination?
I found it under the pillow this morning." On the table beside the
match-box he placed a small pocket handkerchief, and from it there came
the faint, elusive scent of jasmine. "And last of all, do you call
that imagination? I found it in one of the books yonder." He placed
an old envelope in front of him, and the others crowded round. It was
addressed to Ober-Lieutenant Fritz Rutter.
VI
MORPHIA
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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