"
"Oh, I knew you didn't want to sit near that Jap. Can't bear the race
myself."
She nodded approvingly.
"Waiter's still out in the kitchen," she reminded him. "Now, old
soldier, aren't you glad I took pity on you? Your steak would have
been cold before he got round to you, and I imagine you've had
sufficient cold rations to do you quite a while."
"It was sweet of you to come to my rescue. I'm not exactly crippled,
though I haven't used my hand for more than two months, and the muscles
are slightly atrophied. The knife slips because I cannot close my hand
tightly. But I'll be all right in another month."
"What happened to it?"
"Saber-thrust. Wouldn't have amounted to much if the Bolshevik who did
the thrusting had had a clean saber. Blood-poisoning set in, but our
battalion surgeon got to work on it in time to save me from being
permanently crippled."
"'Saber-thrust?' They got that close to you?"
He nodded.
"Troop of Semenoff's bandits in a little two-by-four fight out on the
trans-Siberian railroad. Guess they wanted the trainload of rations we
were guarding. My captain killed the fellow who stuck me and accounted
for four others who tried to finish me."
"Captains think a great deal of good first sergeants," she suggested.
"And you got a wound-chevron out of it. I suppose, like every soldier,
you wanted one, provided it didn't cost too much.
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