“Binny began to get indignant. He said he wasn’t dead, that anyone could see he wasn’t dead, and that it would be a barbarous thing to bury him. The orderlies, who were very nice fellows, admitted that Binny seemed to be alive, but they stuck to it that it was their business to carry out their orders. Into the mortuary Binny would have to go. They tried to console him by saying that the funeral would not be till the next morning. But that did not cheer Binny much. In the end they took pity on the poor fellow and said they would go away for an hour and come back. If Binny could get the order changed they’d be very pleased to leave him where he was. It wasn’t, so they explained, any pleasure to them to put Binny into a coffin. “Binny did not get much chance during his hour’s reprieve. The only person who came into the ward was a V.A.D. girl, quite a nice little girl, good-looking enough to be bullied a lot by the sister-in-charge. Binny told her about the fix he was in, and at first she thought he was raving and tried to soothe him down. In the end, to pacify him, I suppose, she went and asked the orderlies about him. She had not been out in France long, that V.A.D., and wasn’t properly accustomed to things. When she found out that what Binny had told her was true, she got fearfully excited. She couldn’t do anything herself, of course, but she ran off to the matron as hard as she could. The matron was a bit startled just at first, but she kept her head. “‘Tell Private Binny,’ she said, ‘that if he has any complaints to make they must be made at the proper time and through the proper channels. The C.O. goes round the hospital every morning between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Private Binny can speak to him then.’ “‘But by that time,’ said the V. A.D. girl, ‘the man will be buried.’ “‘I can’t help that,’ said the matron. ‘The discipline of the hospital must be maintained. It would be perfectly impossible to run a place like this if every man was allowed to make complaints at all hours of the day and to all sorts of people.’