Once away from the theatre and the knife, Andrews, like any other healthy youngster, soon accumulated any amount of animal spirit, lying there in bed, adored by the nursing sisters, admired by the men orderlies. He was not going to listen to Dormer’s serious questions. He began: “Cheerio! Sit on the next bed, there’s no corpse in it, they’ve just taken it away. Anyhow, it isn’t catching. Have a cigarette, do for God’s sake. They keep on giving me the darned things, and they all end in smoke!” “Sorry you got knocked out.” “Only fair. Knocked out heaps of Fritzes. I gave ’em what for, and they gave me some back. I say, have you just come from the town?” “I have just motored through.” “Is it true that our chaps have broke loose?” “There’s a certain amount of disorder, but no violence that I could see.” Dormer was conscious of heads being popped up in all the surrounding beds. So that was how it took them! Of course, they were bored stiff. “How topping. Is it true that they’ve killed all the red-caps?” “I didn’t see any signs of it.” “Cleared up the remains had they? Picked the bones, or fallen in proper burying parties.” “I don’t think there was anything of that sort.” “Oh, come now, first we heard they had set on a police-corporal that had shot a Jock.” “What did he do that for?” “Dunno. It isn’t the close season for Jocks, anyhow. Then it was ten police-corporals. The last rumour was that they’d stoned the A.P.M. to death----” And so it went on. Lunch-time came. A Doctor Major, impressed by Dormer’s credentials, invited him into the Mess, and asked a lot of questions about the front, the offensive, and the state of Étaples. Dormer always liked those medical messes. It seemed so much more worth while to mend up people’s limbs, rather than to smash them to bits. The Doctors had their professional “side” no doubt, but they had a right to it. After lunch Dormer made his way back to Ward C. He was met by a hush, and by a little procession. The Sergeant-major came first and after him bearers with a stretcher covered by the Union Jack. The hush in the ward was ominous. They were all so close to what had happened. It was not like the open field where the casualty is a casualty and the living man a different thing. Here the dead were only different in degree, not in kind. They were worse “cases”--the worst, that was all. So there were no high spirits after lunch. They had gibed about Death in the morning, but Death had come and they had ceased to gibe. In the silence, Dormer felt awkward, did not know how to begin. When he had made up his mind that he must, he looked up and found Andrews was asleep. So the day wore on to tea-time, and after tea he was not wanted in the ward, and was wanted in the Mess. He himself was not hurrying to return to any regularly bombed hut near Poperinghe. The Commanding Officer was even more emphatic. Étaples was not safe. Dormer let it go at that, and got a good game of bridge.