"FACIAL INJURIESSEVERE"

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 15, 17 July 1918, Page 9

"FACIAL INJURIESSEVERE"

"Oh, Sister, aren't I a beauty!" He did not speak very distinctly, but that was hardly extraordinary—half his jaw was bandaged, and tho other half— well, that was just not there. "Why, Sergeant," and she forced the cheerful note, "you're not half bad, you know. Just wait till you see the finished article." Sergeant Bates had waited to the extent of ten long months and eight "ops" (operations), and now even the Sister's iron nerve needed a. strong- grip, and her emotions a stronger one, as day by day she dressed the chaos that had been a face. _ The surgeons had done wonders; one eide of the man's face was practically normal —and he had a pathetic habit of always manoeuvring that "good" side towards strangers. But the other— "You want to see Sergeant Bates?" 1 "Yes, if you please, ma'am." The little woman looked almost as if she expected Matron to produce him by sleight-of-hand there and .then. "He told you of his wound?" "Ho said he was hit by shrapnel, ma'am, but-not. bad." Matron motioned her to sit down, and then with an infinite pity in her face this terror of all V.A.l).'s, this alleged martinet, told the little woman before her in a few words what Sergeant Bates in his agony of mind could not write. "So you ccc, Mrs, Bates," she ended gently, "you must be brave when you see him, because he dreads this meeting—for your sake."--"l'm not complaining, mum, if he don't,"' she said, "and now, if you don't mind, I'll see him." Sister came into the small ward, rather hurriedly, and, drawing the 6creens round Sergeant Bates's bed, told him, very gently, that his wife was waiting to see him. "Sister!" The man turned abruptly as he groped for the kindly hand she held out. "I'm a bloomin' coward, that's what I am!" "Sergeant, she knows' it all!" She paused, feelinc: more than a, "bloomin' coward" hereelf. "Come, now, you're my prize patient, you know!" There was a pause, then : "Right you are, Sister!" said the soldier. The door opened and shut—steps came toward his screens, and Bates still gripped the Sister's hand bs first Matron appeared and then his wife. "Well, Bates " began Matron, but the little woman was pas,t her. ' She took 'on© searching glance, as, involuntarily, he turned his '"gocd" side to her, and then,' deliberately choosing the ofcber, she went right up to the bed, and. with a. hand on each shoulder, kissed him — ever so lightly—on tha'worst ecar of all. —"Jabz," in the Daily Mail.'

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