He examined it.
"Blood-poisoning," he announced.

"Nasty, if not attended to.
Detained for a week." He saw my eyes fill with tears at this blow, the more cruel because quite unexpected; and added not unkindly: "Eh?
What?
In a hurry?
Never mind, my lad--you'll go up with the next draft I dare say.

Jericho won't fall between this and then." I was young, and never doubted that even so slight a promise must be remembered.
Still, that my merit might leave him no excuse for forgetting, I determined that it should not escape attention: and finding myself confined to hospital with a trifling hurt which in no way interfered with my activity, and being at once pounced upon by an over-worked and red-eyed orderly and pressed into service as emergency-man, nurse, and general bottle-washer for three over-crowded tents, I flung into my new duties a zeal which ended by undoing me.

Drummers might be wanted at the front, but meanwhile the hospital-camp was undoubtedly short-handed.

And my hopes faded as, with the approach of Christmas, wagon after wagon laden with sick soldiers crawled back to us from the low-lying country over which Lord Wellington had spread his forces between the Agueda and the upper Mondego--men shuddering with ague or bent double with rheumatism, and all bringing down the same tales of short food, sodden quarters, and arrears of pay.