CHAPTER XVII

THE RAM-CORPS ANGEL

Grannie was writing letters. Grandfather had gone into London to the War Office, and it was only ten o'clock. Grannie was safe for an hour or two, for she was sending out notices about something, and that always took a long time.

Ger was rather at a loose end, but with the admirable spirit of the adventurous for making the best of things, he decided to go forth and see what he could see. No one was in the hall to question him as he went out, and he made straight for the common, where something exciting was always toward. He had forgotten to put on a coat, and the wind was cold, so he ran along with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. His cap was old, his suit, "a descended suit," was old, and his face, though it was still so early in the day, was far from clean.

For once the common was almost deserted; but far away in front of the "Shop" a thin line of khaki proclaimed the fact that some of the cadets were drilling.

Ger loved the Shop. He had been there on several occasions, accompanied by one or other of his grandparents, to see Grantly, and he knew that he must not go in alone, or his brother would, as he put it, "get in a bate." But there could be no objection to his standing at the gate and looking in at the parade ground. He knew the porter, a nice friendly chap who would not drive him away.

He turned off the common into the road that runs up past the Cadet Hospital. He knew the Cadet Hospital, for once he had gone there with Grannie to visit "a kind of cousin" who had broken his collar-bone in the riding-school. As he pa.s.sed Ger looked in at the open door. A little crowd of rather poor-looking people stood in the entrance, among them a boy about his own age, with a great pad of cotton-wool fastened over his ear by a bandage.

A crowd of any sort had always an irresistible fascination for Ger. He skipped up the path and pushed in among the waiting people to the side of the boy with the tied-up head.

"Got a sore ear?" he murmured sympathetically.

"Wot's it to you wot I got?" was the discouraging reply.

"Well, I'm sorry, you know," said Ger with obvious sincerity.

The boy looked hard at him and grunted.

"What are you here for?" Ger whispered.

"The Myjor, 'e got to syringe it," the boy mumbled, but this time his tone was void of offence.

"Does it hurt?"

"'E don't 'urt, not much, 'e is careful; 'e's downright afraid of urtin' ya'. . . . An' if 'e does 'urt, it's becos 'e can't 'elp it, an' so," here he wagged his head impressively, "ya' just doesn't let on . . . see? Wots the matter wiv you?"

Here was a poser. Yet Ger was consumed by a desire to see this mysterious "myjor" who syringed ears and didn't hurt people. He had fallen upon an adventure, and he was going to see it out.

"I don't know exactly," he whispered mysteriously, "but I've got to see him."

"P'raps they've wrote about ya'," the bandaged boy suggested.

Ger thought this was unlikely, but let the suggestion pa.s.s unchallenged. He watched the various people vanish into a room on the right, saw them come out again, heard the invariable "Next please"

which heralded the seclusion of a new patient, till everybody had gone and come back and gone forth into the street again save only the bandaged boy and himself.

"You nip in w'en I comes out," the boy said encouragingly, "it's a bit lyte already, but 'e'll see ya' if yer slippy."

It seemed a long time to Ger as he waited. The little crowd of women and children had melted away. Men in blue cotton jackets pa.s.sed to and fro across the hall, "Sister," in a curious headdress and scarlet cape, looking like a picture by Carpaccio, came out of another room, went up the staircase and vanished from view. No one spoke to him or asked his business, and Ger stood in a dark corner holding his cap in his hands and waiting.

At last the boy came back with a clean bandage and a big new pad of cotton-wool over the syringed ear.

"'Urry up," he whispered as he pa.s.sed. "I told 'im as there was one more."

Ger hurried.

Once inside that mysterious door he started violently, for a tall figure clad in a long white smock was standing near a sink brushing his nails. He wore a black band round his head, and on his forehead, attached to the band, was a round mirror. The very brightest mirror Ger had ever seen.

So this was the Myjor.

The uniform was quite new to Ger.

The eyes under the mirror were very blue, and for the rest this strangely clad tall man had a brown moustache and a pleasant voice as he turned, and drying his hands the while, said:

"Well, young shaver, what's the matter with you?"

In his eight years Ger had had but few aches and pains save such as followed naturally upon falls or fights, but he knew that if this interview was to be prolonged he must have something, so he hazarded an ailment.

"I've a muzzy feeling in my head sometimes, sir, a sort of ache, not bad, you know."

The Myjor looked very hard at Ger as he spoke--evidently the little boy's voice and accent were in some way unexpected.

He sat down and drew him forward close to his knees. The round mirror on his forehead flashed into Ger's eyes and he winced.

"Headache, eh?" said the Myjor cheerfully. "You don't look as though you ought to get headaches. Can you read?"

"No, sir, that's just what I can't do, and there's awful rows about it.

I can't seem to read, I don't want to much, but I do try . . . I do really, but it's so muddly."

"How long have you been learning?"

"Years and years," said Ger mournfully. "They say Kitten 'll read before me, and she's only four."

"Um," said the Myjor, "that will never do. We can't have Kitten stealing a march on us that way. This must be seen into. By the way, what's your name?"

"Gervais Folaire Ffolliot," Ger answered solemnly, as though he were saying his catechism.

"Ffolliot . . . Ffolliot . . . where d'you live?"

"Redmarley . . . it's a long way from here."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"I'm stopping with grannie and grandfather."

"And who is grandfather?"

"General Grantly," Ger answered promptly, smiling broadly. He always felt that his grandfather was a trump card anywhere, but in Woolwich most of all, "and he's got such a lot of medals, teeny ones, you know, like the big ones. I can read _them_," he added proudly. "I know them all. Grannie taught me."

"But why have you come to me? And why on earth do you come in among the wives and children of the Shop servants?"

"The door was open," Ger explained, "and I talked to the ear boy, and he said you were most awfully gentle and didn't hurt and hated if you had to--so I knew you were kind, and I'm awfully fond of kind people, so I wanted to see you--you're not cross, are you?" he asked anxiously.