The stump was then seared with a hot iron.
"You have stood it well," the surgeon said, for, except when the iron was applied to the wound, no groan had issued from Desmond's lips.

"Now, your servant must keep these dressings continually soaked with water, and, in a few days, we may hope that you will be able to travel in a waggon without danger." When the army marched away a week later, Desmond was placed in a waggon, half filled with hay, with several other wounded officers.
At Arras, where there was a large military hospital, he was kept for a few days, and then sent on to Amiens, only the most severe cases being retained at Arras, as another engagement might take place at any moment, and the resources of the town would be taxed to the utmost.

He gained strength very slowly, and it was six weeks before the surgeons pronounced him to be sufficiently convalescent to be moved.
"It would," they said, "be probably some months before he would be fit to return to active service." He was sitting, looking listlessly out of the window of the chamber that he and three other officers occupied, when Mike came in, followed, to Desmond's intense surprise, by Monsieur de la Vallee.
"My dear Desmond," the latter exclaimed, hurrying forward and grasping his hand, "you must have thought that we had all forgotten you." "Indeed, I never thought anything of the kind, Philip.

I did not suppose that you had ever heard of me, since we parted at Moulins." "News travels but slowly, but we did hear that fifteen subalterns of O'Brien's regiment were captured in the Salisbury.

I wrote to a friend in Paris, and he told me that you were among the number, but that, on making enquiries, he found you had, in some manner or other, effected your escape, and that you and two other officers had had an audience with the king, and had then gone to the northern frontier on the staff of the Duke of Berwick.