It was pure chance that sent me to the St. Ives for the night before my
steamer sailed. Closing the doors of my apartment the previous week and
bidding good-bye to the servants who maintained me there in bachelor
state and comfort, I had accompanied my friend Dick Forrest on a
farewell yacht cruise from which I returned to find the first two hotels
of my seeking packed from cellar to roof. But the third had a free room,
and I took it without the ghost of a presentiment. What would or would
not have happened if I had not taken it is a thing I like to speculate
on.
To begin with, I should in due course have joined an ambulance section
somewhere in France. I should not have gone hobbling on crutches for a
painful three months or more. I should not have in my possession
four shell fragments, carefully extracted by a French surgeon from my
fortunately hard head. Nor should I have lived through the dreadful
moment when that British officer at Gibraltar held up those papers,
neatly folded and sealed and bound with bright, inappropriately cheerful
red tape, and with an icy eye demanded an explanation beyond human power
to afford.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25