"Yes," said Dickenson, in quite an altered tone. "There, you know me. When we get back and you're going to deliver your messages, if you let me know, orderly, I'll see that you don't have to walk." Dickenson turned sharply to walk away, but came back. "Try and keep the captain from making those outrageous charges, my lad." "I do, sir; but he will keep on." "Well, go on cooling his bandages, and he'll go off to sleep." "I hope so, sir," replied the man. "But what about Corporal May?" "Serve him the same, of course," said Dickenson, and he hurried away, with Roby's words ringing in his ears. "Chap wants to be a sort of angel for this work," said the orderly as he fumbled about his slight garments. "Hankychy, hankychy, where are yer? Washed you out clean in the little river this morning and dried you on a hot stone." "What are you looking for, mate?" said the third patient in the hut feebly--a man who, with a shattered arm-bone, was lying very still. "Hankychy," said the orderly gruffly. "Lost it." "Here it is. You lent it to me to wipe my face and keep off the flies." "Did I? So I did. All right, mate; keep it. Mind you don't hurt the flies. Like a drink o' water?" "Ah-h!" sighed the injured man. That was all, but it meant so much. There was a pleasant, trickling, tinkling sound in the heated hut as the orderly took a tin and dipped it in an iron bucket. The next minute he was down on one knee with an arm under the sufferer's shoulders, raising him as gently as if the task was being done by a woman. Then the tin was held to the poor fellow's lips, and the orderly smiled as he saw the avidity with which it was emptied. "Good as a drop of beer--eh?" he said. "Beer?" replied the patient, returning the smile. "Ha! Not bad in its way; but I never tasted a pint so good as that." "Oh! Ah!" said the orderly grimly. "Wait till you get all right again, and you'll alter your tune." "Get right again?" whispered the man, so that the corporal should not hear. "Think I shall?" "What! with nothing else the matter but a broken bone? Why, of course." "Ah!" sighed the poor fellow, with a look of relief. "I'm a bit down, mate, with having so little to eat, and it makes me think. Thankye; that's done me a lot o' good." He settled down upon the sack which formed his couch, and the orderly rose to take back the tin, not seeing that Corporal May's eyes were fixed upon the vessel, which he watched eagerly, as if expecting to see it refilled and brought to him. But the orderly merely set it down, and made a vicious blow at a buzzing fly. "Well, what have I done?" whined the corporal. "Done? Heverythink you shouldn't have done," said the orderly. "Look here, corp'ral; next time the barber cuts your hair, you ask him to take a bit off the end of your tongue. It's too long, mate." "Do you want me to report you to the doctor for refusing to bring me a drink?"