* * *
“I say, isn’t it an awful nuisance that we’re so near and still can’t get there,” said one of the young officers. “There may be an action to-day and we shan’t be in it.”
The piping voice and the fresh rosy spots which appeared on his face betrayed the sweet, youthful bashfulness of one in constant fear that his words may come out wrong.
The officer who had lost an arm looked at him with a smile.
“You will get there quite soon enough, believe me,” he said.
The young man looked with respect at the armless officer—whose emaciated face unexpectedly lit up with a smile—and became silently absorbed in making his tea. And, really, the face, the attitude, and especially the empty sleeve of the officer, expressed a kind of calm indifference, that seemed to reply to every word and action:
