"Ma'am," said I.
"Those boys aren't getting proper CON-sideration," she said. "If
it was dogs," she said, "they couldn't be treated worse. William,
I'm going to see what one old woman can do."
"You ought to ask Captain Howard first," I said. "You don't belong
to the Army Medical Corps."
"It's them that let Benny die," she said, with her eyes snapping,
"and, as for asking, they'd say 'No,' for they don't allow any
women except at the base hospitals."
I knew this for a fack, but I'd rather she'd find it out from the
captain than from me. I didn't want to seem to make trouble for
her. So, while I was wondering what to do about it, she headed
right in, leaving me with the valise and the umberella, and a kind
of qualmy feeling that the old lady might strike a snag.
I didn't have no chance to come back till along sundown, but, my
stars I even in that time there had been a change. Benny's mother
had been getting in her deadly work, and the orderlies were
bursting mad, not that any of them dared say anything outright or
show it except in their faces, which were that long; for, you see,
the contract surgeon had taken her side, and had backed her up.
But they moved around like mules with their ears down, powerful
unwilling, and yet scared to say a word. The hospital had been
made a new place, with another tent up that had been laid away and
forgotten (you wouldn't think it possible, but it was), and the
sick and wounded had been sorted over and washed and made
comfortable; and, where before there was no room to turn around,
you could walk through wide lanes and wonder what had become of
the crowd.
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