"Captain J. Wellcombe. Royal Army Medical Corps."
Had the world really become so small? Could a quarter century be bridged in an instant? I seemed to see the little old stone schoolhouse once again; its low-ceilinged room, the big box-stove, the well-hacked seats, and the rows of little boys and girls bowed over their greasy slates. The scent of midday lunches stowed away floated back to me in memory's dream, and the haw-tree brushed its leaves against the window pane. I saw Jack as he was then, with frank blue eyes and waving golden hair--courteous, genial and big-hearted, beloved by all; and I wondered as I stood there if by any chance this might be he.
The nursing sister awoke me from this reverie: "He arrived in the early morning," she volunteered, "but as he was not seriously hurt I didn't call you, and dressed the wound myself."
It was with a feeling of nervous tension and expectancy that I followed her down the hall to his room and entered. Alas! the world is full of disappointments. It was not Jack--this dignified man with the touch of grey about the temples--but still the resemblance grew stronger, the kindly blue eyes, the same winsome smile--I wondered still.
We passed the customary greetings and chatted commonplaces for a few moments, and all the time his face wore an expression of puzzled enquiry, as if he too were trying to recall some faint memory from the past. At last I blurted out:
"Are you by any chance related to Jack Wellcombe, of K----?"
"A very close relation," he returned laughingly. "I am his dearest friend; in fact--himself. And you--you are Mac--dear old Mac!" he cried, stretching out both hands to me in his impetuous, warm-hearted way. I could have hugged him, I was so glad to see him!
"What a queer game is Life!" he exclaimed a moment later. "For years you and I have been shaken about, with many a jolt, in the dice-box of the world, and now, like two Jacks, we are once more tossed together upon the Table of Fate!"
While we were chatting over old times, the nurse unwound his bandages.
"I hope it doesn't hurt too much?" I asked him, as I examined his wound preparatory to dressing it.
"It's a mere scratch," he returned lightly; "a piece of shrapnel through the flesh of the thigh; but the surgeon at the Field Ambulance thought I should come back to hospital for a week or two. Things are rather noisy around Ypres."