Part 12

“Back hurt you?” says the latter, mildly.

“Yes, sir; run over by a howitzer; ain’t never been able to stand straight since.”

“A howitzer!” says the surgeon. “Lean forward, my man, so as to touch the floor--so. That will do.” Then turning to his aid, he said, “Prepare this man’s discharge papers.”

“His discharge, sir?”

“Yes; I said that. Who’s next?”

“Thank you, sir,” groaned the man with the back. “How soon, sir, do you think it will be?”

“Ah, not less than a month,” replied the surgeon, and passed on.

Now, as it was unpleasant to be bent like the letter C, and as the patient presumed that his discharge was secure, he naturally allowed himself a little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours, and one fine morning Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured indorsement about his malady.

The surgeon came next on O’Callahan, standing, like each of us, at the foot of his own bed.

“I’ve paralytics in my arm,” he said, with intention to explain his failure to salute his superior.

“Humph!” said the surgeon; “you have another hand.”

“An’ it’s not the rigulation to saloot with yer left,” said the Irishman, with a grin, while the patients around us began to smile.

“How did it happen?” said the surgeon.

“I was shot in the shoulder,” answered the patient, “about three months ago, sir. I haven’t stirred it since.”

The surgeon looked at the scar.

“So recently?” said he. “The scar looks older; and, by the way, doctor,”--to his junior,--“it could not have gone near the nerves. Bring the battery, orderly.”

In a few moments the surgeon was testing one after another, the various muscles. At last he stopped. “Send this man away with the next detachment. Not a word, my man. You are a rascal, and a disgrace to honest men who have been among bullets.”

The man muttered something, I did not hear what.

“Put this man in the guard-house,” cried the surgeon, and so passed on without smile or frown.

As to the ulcer case, to my amusement he was put in bed, and his leg locked up in a wooden splint, which effectually prevented him from touching the part diseased. It healed in ten days, and he too went as food for powder.

The surgeon asked me a few questions, and requesting to be sent for during my next fit, left me alone.

I was, of course, on my guard, and took care to have my attacks only during his absence, or to have them over before he arrived. At length, one morning, in spite of my care, he chanced to enter the ward as I fell on the floor. I was laid on the bed, apparently in strong convulsions. Presently I felt a finger on my eyelid, and as it was raised, saw the surgeon standing beside me. To escape his scrutiny I became more violent in my motions. He stopped a moment and looked at me steadily. “Poor fellow!” said he, to my great relief, as I felt at once that I had successfully deceived him. Then he turned to the ward doctor and remarked: “Take care he does not hurt his head against the bed; and, by the by, doctor, do you remember the test we applied in Carstairs’s case? Just tickle the soles of his feet and see if it will cause those backward spasms of the head.”

The aid obeyed him, and, very naturally, I jerked my head backward as hard as I could.

“That will answer,” said the surgeon, to my horror. “A clever rogue. Send him to the guard-house.”

Happy had I been had my ill luck ended here, but as I crossed the yard an officer stopped me. To my disgust, it was the captain of my old Rhode Island company.

“Hello!” said he; “keep that fellow safe. I know him.”

To cut short a long story, I was tried, convicted, and forced to refund the Rhode Island bounty, for by ill luck they found my bank-book among my papers. I was finally sent to Fort Delaware and kept at hard labor, handling and carrying shot, policing the ground, picking up cigar-stumps, and other light, unpleasant occupations.

When the war was over I was released. I went at once to Boston, where I had about four hundred dollars in bank. I spent nearly all of this sum before I could satisfy the accumulated cravings of a year and a half without drink or tobacco, or a decent meal. I was about to engage in a little business as a vender of lottery policies when I first began to feel a strange sense of lassitude, which soon increased so as quite to disable me from work of any kind. Month after month passed away, while my money lessened, and this terrible sense of weariness went on from bad to worse. At last one day, after nearly a year had elapsed, I perceived on my face a large brown patch of color, in consequence of which I went in some alarm to consult a well-known physician. He asked me a multitude of tiresome questions, and at last wrote off a prescription, which I immediately read. It was a preparation of arsenic.