Can you walk?"
"No--hit in both arms--why the deuce can't I walk?"
"Shock, I suppose."
A half hour later he was in a hospital tent and a grim old army surgeon
handling his arms. "Right arm flesh-wound--left elbow smashed. You will
likely have to lose the arm."
"No, I won't," said Penhallow, "I'd as leave die."
"Don't talk nonsense. They all say that. See you again."
"You will get ten dollars," said John to a hospital orderly, "if you will
find Captain Blake of General Wright's staff."
"I'll do it, sir."
Presently his arms having been dressed, he was made comfortable with
morphia. At dusk next morning his friend Blake sat down beside his cot.
"Are you badly hurt?" he said. A certain tenderness in the voice was like
a revelation of some qualities unknown before.
"I do not know. For about the first time in my life I am suffering
pain--I mean constant pain, with a devilish variety in it too. The same
ball, I believe, went through some muscle in the right arm and smashed my
left elbow. It's a queer experience. The surgeon-in-charge informed me
that I would probably lose the arm. The younger surgeon says the ball
will become what he calls encysted. They probed and couldn't find it.
Isn't that Josiah I hear?"
"Yes, I will bring him in."
In a moment they came back.
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