A shadow of a smile flickered for an instant in the woman's eyes. Often she had seen them like this. "I am the surgeon in charge, the commanding military officer here," she replied evenly. "After awhile, I'm sure you won't mind."
She went quietly on unwinding him. He heard her scissors snip. She was going to take some stitches. Once or twice she had to hurt horribly. She did it with deft precision. With the same quick motions, the sergeant had seen his wife at home roll out a pudding crust or flap a pancake. It was the convincing sureness of the woman who knows her business. Could a woman be a doctor, after all? The strips of linen had piled in a blood stained heap on the floor. With an effort the sergeant steadied his voice: "What is there left of me?" he asked.
The doctor smoothed his pillow first. "Sergeant," she said very gently, "you have one perfectly good arm. I think there will be one leg. Last week the other—" But the sergeant did not have to hear the rest of the sentence. When he struggled back from somewhere in a black abyss, the hand that last week had held the surgeon's knife was softly smoothing back the damp locks of hair from his cold forehead. She drew the cherry red comforter up and patted it about his shoulders with the infinite sympathy that speaks in a woman's touch. She leaned over him with a glance that signalled courage and understanding. Then she left him to fight the fight he had to fight in the grim grey light of that London day for his own readjustment to the
