“You're all right, my boy. Go treat yourself to a cup of cocoa, and a good, thick slice of bread and raspberry jam--raspberry, remember--and to-morrow you can report to your battalion medical officer.”
“What!” exclaimed the man. “Doctor, I can't go up again. I'm not fit to go up.”
“Oh, yes, you can, my boy. You'll be in good fighting trim to-morrow. You'll see! You'll see! Come back here some day, perhaps, with a V. C.”
Thereupon the man began to swear violently.
“Here, none of that,” said the doctor sharply, “or up you go to-night.”
A grin ran around the dressing station, in which none joined more heartily than the first shell-shock man, waiting to be conveyed down the line.
“They don't get by the old man often, nowadays,” was Dr. Gregg's comment.
“You don't often get cases like this, though, do you?” enquired Barry.
“Not often. We have passed through this dressing station some thousands of cases, and we may have had eight or ten malingerers. But this is not all sham. There is a strong mixture of hysteria and suggestion with the sham. A chap with a highly organised temperament gets buried by a shell. That is a terrific nerve shock. He sees two or three chaps blown to bits. Another nerve shock. Now he has heard about shell shock as a result of a similar experience. Immediately the suggestion begins to work and the man discovers in himself the well known symptoms of genuine shell shock, and, begad! I don't wonder. What we have just given him is part of the treatment for hysteria--a little nerve tonic. A good sleep may put him all right by to-morrow morning. The chances are, however, that the O. C. will send him down for a few days' rest and change. If so, the chap will be as happy as a clam. The boys will rag him half to death down there, so that he will be keen to get back again, and the chances are may get his V. C. Oh, we all get scared stiff,” laughed Gregg. “We are none of us proud about here. That hero stuff that you read about in the home papers, we don't know much about. We just 'carry on'.”
“By Jove, Gregg! That's all right, but to just 'carry on' in this business, it seems to me, calls for some pretty fine hero stuff.”
“Well, we don't call it so,” said Gregg. “Now I'll see about your ambulance. I believe there's one about ready to go. I think I can find a place for you and your friend, and it will save you a long walk.”