第50章

"I don't take much stock in this idea of women nurses, especially when they're young and pretty." He scowled at Rachel as if she had committed a crime in being young and beautiful."But the country's full of women with a Quixotic notion of being Florence Nightingales, and they've badgered the Government into accepting their services.

I suppose I'll have to take my share of them.Ever nursed?""No, sir," responded Rachel, compressing as much ahughtiness as possible into the answer.

"Of course not.Girls at your age are not at all likely to know anything that is useful, and least of all how to nurse a sick man.I hardly know which is the worst, a young one who don't know anything, or a middle-aged one who thinks she knows it all, and continually interferes with the management of a case.I believe though, I'd rather have had the middle-aged one to start with.

She'd be more likely to tend to her business, and not have her head turned by the attentions of the good-looking young officers who swarm around her.Mind, I'll not allow any flirting here."Rachel's face crimsoned."You forget yourself," she said, cuttingly;"or perhaps you have nothing to forget.At least, man an effort to remember that I'm a lady."The bristly eyebrows straightened down to a level line over the small blue eyes, and unpleasant furrows drew themselves around the corners of his mouth."YOU forget," he said, "that if you enter upon these duties you are in the military service and subject to your superior officers.You forget the necessity of the most rigid discipline, and that it is my duty to explain and enforce this.""I certainly expect to obey orders," said Rachel, a little overawed.

"You may rightly expect to," he answere with a slight sneer; "because it will be a matter of necessity--you will have to.We must have instant and unquestioning obedience to orders here, as well as everywhere else in the Army, or it would be like a rope of sand--of no strength whatever--no strength, whatever.""I know it," answered Rachel, depressed even more by th apparition of martial law than she had been by the heat.

"And what I have been telling you is only the beginning," continued the Surgeon, noting the effect of his words, and exulting in their humbling power."The cornerstone of everything military is obedience--prompt, unfailing obedience, by everybody, soldier or officer, to his superiors.Without it---""Major Moxon," said an officer, entering and saluting, "the General presents his compliments, and desires to know why his repeated orders in regard to the furloughing of men have been so persistently disregarded.""Because," said the Surgeon, getting purplish-red about the cheeks and nose, " because the matter's one which I consider outside of his province--beyond his control, sir.I am Chief of the Medical Department, as you are perhaps aware, sir.""We presumed that you were taking that view of the matter, from your course," answered the Aide calmly."I am not here to argue the matter with you, but simply to direct you to consider yourself under arrest.Charges are being prepared against you, to which Iwill add specifications based on this interview.Good afternoon, sir." The Aide saluted stiffly and moved away, leaving the Surgeon in a state of collapse at the prospect of what he had brought upon himself by his injudicious contumacy.Mis Rachel was in that state of wonderment that comes to pupils at seeing their teachers rebel agains their own precepts.The Surgeon was too much engrossed in his own affairs to pay farther heed to her.He tapped a bell.