Barbara looked at me rather less favourably than before.  It was evident that she now thought poorly of my intelligence, and that I had made a faux pas.

“I’m a nurse,” Barbara explained, loftily, showing an armlet bearing the ensign of the Red Cross.  I was about to remind her of 1 & 2 Geo. V. cap. 20, which threatens the penalties of a misdemeanour against all who wear the Red Cross without the authority of Army Council, but I thought better of it.  Instead of anything so foolish, I exhibit a delicate solicitude about the health of the patient.  I put myself right by referring to it as “he.”  A less intelligent observer might pronounce it to be decidedly of the female sex.  Still, I reflected, women have enlisted in the Army before now.  I proceeded to inspect the injured limb with professional gravity.  “A compound fracture, I think, Barbara.  He will require careful nursing.”

Barbara liked this—­no one in the matron’s room had ever exhibited such a clinical interest in the case before, and she thinks “fwacture” rather imposing.

“Let me feel his pulse,” I said.  I held a waxen arm between my thumb and forefinger, and looked at my wrist-watch for some seconds, Barbara gazing at me intently.

“Hum! hum!  I think we had better take his temperature,” I said, as I held a clinical thermometer in the shape of a fountain-pen to the rosebud lips of the patient. “103, I think.”

“Will you wite a pwescwiption?” asked Barbara anxiously.

“Certainly, an admirable suggestion, Barbara.  Let me see, will this do, do you think?” I scribbled on my Field Note-book, tore out the page, and handed it to Barbara.

Brom.  Potass.            3 grs. 
Hydrochl.                5 quarts. 
Quin.  Sulph.             1 pt.

She scrutinised it closely.  It puzzled her, though her bewilderment was nothing to the astonishment which that prescription would have excited in a member of the medical profession.

“Fank you,” said Barbara, who was no less pleased than puzzled, and who tried to look as if she quite understood.  Her little face, with its halo of golden curls, was turned up to mine, and she now regarded me with a respect for my professional attainments which was truly gratifying.

I was transcribing a temperature-chart for Barbara’s patient when a tactless messenger came to say that my car was at the door.  Barbara hung on my arm.  “Will you come again, and take his tempewature—­Pwomise?”

I promised.

XIX

AN ARMY COUNCIL

(October 1914)