They brought the news to Revere and he groaned. “Any one but Bobby and I shouldn't have cared! The Sergeant-Major was right.”
“Not going out this journey,” gasped Bobby, as he was lifted from the doolie. “Not going out this journey.” Then with an air of supreme conviction--“I can't, you see.”
“Not if I can do anything!” said the Surgeon-Major, who had hastened over from the mess where he had been dining.
He and the Regimental Surgeon fought together with Death for the life of Bobby Wick. Their work was interrupted by a hairy apparition in a blue-gray dressing-gown, who stared in horror at the bed and cried--“Oh, my Gawd! It can't be 'im!” until an indignant Hospital Orderly whisked him away.
If care of man and desire to live could have done aught, Bobby would have been saved. As it was, he made a fight of three days, and the Surgeon-Major's brow uncreased. “We'll save him yet,” he said; and the Surgeon, who, though he ranked with the Captain, had a very youthful heart, went out upon the word and pranced joyously in the mud.
“Not going out this journey,” whispered Bobby Wick gallantly, at the end of the third day.
“Bravo!” said the Surgeon-Major. “That's the way to look at it, Bobby.”
As evening fell a gray shade gathered round Bobby's mouth, and he turned his face to the tent-wall wearily. The Surgeon-Major frowned.
“I'm awfully tired,” said Bobby, very faintly. “What's the use of bothering me with medicine? I--don't--want--it. Let me alone.”
The desire for life had departed, and Bobby was content to drift away on the easy tide of Death.
“It's no good,” said the Surgeon-Major. “He doesn't want to live. He's meeting it, poor child.” And he blew his nose.
Half a mile away, the regimental band was playing the overture to the Sing-song, for the men had been told that Bobby was out of danger. The clash of the brass and the wail of the horns reached Bobby's ears.
Is there a single joy or pain, That I should never kno-ow? You do not love me, 'tis in vain, Bid me good-bye and go!
An expression of hopeless irritation crossed the boy's face, and he tried to shake his head.
The Surgeon-Major bent down--“What is it, Bobby?”---“Not that waltz,” muttered Bobby. “That's our own--our very ownest own... Mummy dear.”