He saw the long line of wounded men with here and there a wasted, propped-up figure—the quiet nurses passing and repassing. He began to feel the pulsating call of life again. For him the sick-room existence was ended; soon he would be back in the Fairies’ Corner; he could hear the flutter of their wings. The men were in the mess. Dunlap and Singleton were stretched out in long, wicker-basket chairs. Tomlinson was talking in an excited voice with several officers of the Tenth Hussars. "It means that Jim will receive a mention and a damn fine one," Tomlinson was saying, as he leaned back in his chair and gulped down his gin-and-seltzer. Singleton called to the orderly to bring a whiskey-and-soda. Dunlap leaned forward to Tomlinson as he asked: "Is that absolutely sure? We all know that Jim has done fine work in his seven years here, but are the powers above really going to commend his last bit of pluck?" "The powers above," thundered Tomlinson, who loathed being doubted, "not only mean to commend him, but they mean to decorate him with the bronze cross itself. I had it from Watkins." A long whistle greeted this bit of news. Watkins was not apt to talk without positive information. Tomlinson was fairly bursting with enthusiasm and importance. For him station life in India meant gossip—good or bad news—so long as it was news. He could work himself into a fever of enthusiasm, get all the glory out of another man’s receiving a decoration, and rejoice as though it had been given to himself. He only asked that it should occur in his station. "Tommy," as he was called, had been known to incite blackballing from his club against a man whom he had never seen, because no opposition was made. It meant news, and the passing of the word from one mess to another. When the man was blackballed, Tomlinson, in a high fever of indignation, sought the downed man and became so incensed with sympathy that he threatened to resign from a club that could offer such indignities: by that time he had forgotten that he had caused it. At the moment he was basking in the glory of Jim’s coming honors. He took another gin-and-seltzer. "By George! he was down and done for when he came here from the hospital," Dunlap said. "Never saw such a goner. But he’s picked up tremendously during the past month." Singleton took his whiskey-and-potash from the orderly. "Strange," he continued, as he sat up, glass in hand. "Wynnegate is so eager to go back: never saw anything like it. Seems as though this illness had knocked soldiering out of him, and he was such a keen one before." "Mighty fortunate the regiment’s time was up and we’re ordered home. Talk about Jim’s being glad—Gad! it means something to see those kiddies of mine. Wonder if the little beggars will remember me," Dunlap mused.