After a minute or two Chaucer got up and
beckoned me outside.
"Look here," he said, "I don't want to scare you, but suppose that
chap's got anything infectious. Is there a doctor handy?
"Nowhere nearer than Sailly."
"Well, Gubson tells me they were expecting the M.O. at our camp today.
He may have stayed the night. Can you send somebody up to see?"
I sent off an orderly at once, and in half-an-hour a young doctor
arrived, and ordered all the other men out of the hut. Then he pulled
a gaudy handkerchief out of his pocket, sprinkled it with some stuff
out of a small phial, tied it over his mouth and only then began to
fiddle about the sick man, feeling his pulse and sounding him.
Then he got up, readjusted his handkerchief-respirator and mumbled
that it was cerebro-spinal-something. Spotted fever.
We all got out of that hut in double-quick time, believe me. The
doctor was full of orders--half a hundred things to do at once. The
man must be strictly isolated. All the contacts--every blessed man who
had been in the hut with him--must be placed under supervision.
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