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his girl; sometimes it happens that way.
    “Yes?” she said encouragingly.
    “Look out. I’m going to be sick.”
    “Here.” She caught up the enamel bowl from the locker, and steadied his head. Movement and disturbance made things worse, and he was very sick indeed. She took his weight on her shoulder, protected his injured arm, and felt under her hand the loose, boyish softness of his black hair. When he had finished, and she had put the bowl out of the way, he made no attempt to move; probably he was exhausted. She put her arm behind him and settled him back on the pillow again.
    “Now keep quiet, or it will start again.”
    “Yes, I will, I’ve been sick twice already. You have to get properly tight once, to see. It’s a bit overrated, I think. The only thing I—”
    “S-sh. Go to sleep.” He was getting to the excitable stage, which must not be allowed to develop. Picking up the case sheet, she wrote him up for an intramuscular injection of luminal.
    “You can have one more pillow, now.” She got it from the other side of the room, and fixed it correctly under his shoulder. It seemed that he had composed himself for sleep; but when she stood up, he caught at her sleeve.
    “You’re not going away?”
    “Not far. Talking’s bad for you, so soon.”
    “Stay with me. I won’t talk.”
    “Another time. You’re going to sleep now. I’ve ordered you an injection; you’ll feel better when you’ve had it.”
    “I don’t want to go to sleep.” His eyes had opened, widely, and fixed themselves imploringly on her face.
    “All right,” she said, humoring him. “You needn’t till you feel like it. But you simply must rest.”
    “I’d rather go back with you.” His fingers had clenched themselves on the white drill. “I called, and she wouldn’t answer. She went away.”
    Good heavens, thought Hilary, where DOES this place get its nurses! “Don’t worry, I’ll see that doesn’t happen again.”
    “It was bound to happen. If I’d known you were there—”
    He must be sat with all night, she thought, and no bones about it. I’ll see the Matron. Or the next thing anyone knows, he’ll be getting out of bed.
    “That’s all over now. It was only a bad dream. But I’ll stay a little if you’ll promise to be good.”
    He murmured, hazily, “Like we were before,” and turned over on his side.
    She decided to ring for the luminal and give it herself, so as not to disturb him. Long before it had had time to act, he had fallen asleep.
    She remained a few minutes longer, looking down at him and wondering what, in a normal state, he was really like. By the standards of her experience, he had behaved with commendable restraint; patients with this degree of concussion had, as a rule, few inhibitions. They wept, they shouted, they were explicit about the unmentionable. He must have a nice, innocent little subconscious, she thought.
    His hand had loosened in hers; she slid her fingers gently away, and tucked in the bedclothes behind his back. As she bent over him he murmured, “Good night, dear.”

Chapter Three: “I UNDERSTAND HIM TOO WELL!”
    “… AND YOU WILL MAKE IT QUITE CLEAR to the night staff, won’t you, Matron, that I want to be called if there’s any sign whatever of raised intracranial pressure? Hourly temperature, of course, half-hourly pulse and respiration. If his pulse falls below sixty or his respirations below sixteen, or if his temperature starts to climb, and particularly if he becomes drowsy …”
    The Matron assented at intervals, with growing resentment. She had read all these instructions on the case sheet and was already convinced that she had known it all beforehand. Well, it would be Dr. Dundas’s take-in in three days. “Yes, Dr. Mansell, Night Sister is quite accustomed to acute work.” (And so am I, young woman; I was learning it when you were wetting your nappies on a rubber sheet.)
    The unspoken part of the responses was not lost on Hilary. She smiled and