"
"What!" exclaimed the man. "Doctor, I can't go up again. I'm not fit to
go up."
"Oh, yes, you can, my boy. You'll be in good fighting trim to-morrow.
You'll see! You'll see! Come back here some day, perhaps, with a V. C."
Thereupon the man began to swear violently.
"Here, none of that," said the doctor sharply, "or up you go to-night."
A grin ran around the dressing station, in which none joined more
heartily than the first shell-shock man, waiting to be conveyed down the
line.
"They don't get by the old man often, nowadays," was Dr. Gregg's
comment.
"You don't often get cases like this, though, do you?" enquired Barry.
"Not often. We have passed through this dressing station some thousands
of cases, and we may have had eight or ten malingerers. But this is not
all sham. There is a strong mixture of hysteria and suggestion with the
sham. A chap with a highly organised temperament gets buried by a shell.
That is a terrific nerve shock. He sees two or three chaps blown to
bits.
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