Within, was plentiful light--plentiful air and warmth too, and cleanly order. The place looked almost cheerful, although some twenty men lay there, suffering or unhappy. One only was sitting up, who coughed exhaustedly, not violently; he seemed able to do no more than sit up, shaking with debility. In the beds the patients mostly lay quite still. The man next beyond Bettesworth drew the counterpane up over his ears, and I saw a glowing feverish eye watching me. There were but few other visitors--only four, I think, besides myself. Somewhere an electric bell sounded. A little nursing attendant with sleeves stripped up came stumping cheerily all down the ward. She had been washing dishes or something in a kind of scullery just outside when I came in. As she passed through she said, as though to interest the sick men, "This is how I do my work--see? Walkin' about like this!"
My first impression of the place was favourable; all looked so well-appointed, so sumptuous even. And there lay Bettesworth under his white counterpane, himself wonderfully clean and trim, and wearing a floppy white nightcap. I had hoped to find him sitting up; but still....
"How are you?" I shook his hand--unrecognizably thin and clean and soft--and he flushed and sat up, pleased enough. But, "I'm as well as ever I shall be," he murmured; or was it (I don't quite remember) "I shan't never be no better." Shocked, and not sure of having heard aright, I asked again, and the answer came, "I shan't never be no better, so long as I bides here."
What was the matter, then? Everything. The interview turned forthwith into one protracted, unreasoning grumble from the old man. He had not food enough. Bread and butter--just a little piece at one time, and a little piece more at some other time. And beef-tea--"they calls it beef-tea, but 'tis only that stuff out o' the bottle--_I_ forgets the name of it. Bovril? Ah, that's it. One cup we has at home 'd make twenty o' these."
I tried to reason with him, but it was useless. Evidently he was very weak. He coughed at times, but said he had no pain now. What he wanted was to get up, and be about, where he could obtain for himself such things as he might fancy. If a man, he argued, feeling as he did, was allowed to get up and put on his clothes for an hour or two, and have a sluice down, wouldn't it brighten that man up? But last night--he didn't know what time it was, and he got out of bed. One of the nurses came in just then. "'What are you doin' out there?' she said; 'you ought to be in bed.' 'And so did you ought to be,' I says." To judge from his tone in narrating, he said it in no amiable voice. He added petulantly, "There! give me Guildford Hospital before this, twenty times over!"