The stretcher-bearers were still grinning when they returned under a load of striped flannel bound up with broad tapes.
‘One half gross, counted,’ they told him proudly.
Handing them over to Sister Vellacott was a moment of triumph. He scarcely knew when he’d felt so pleased at what he’d pulled off. School, maybe, with the fellows in Number Five Study?
He got a laugh out of the men as well, going up to her in the middle of them all and declaring, ‘Sister, I’ve got your pyjamas.’
She looked almost pretty, blushing.
‘The difference, Carrie, the difference,’ he exclaimed. They were taking a stroll after tea, among the palms and strelitzias of the Company’s Garden, a short distance away from their hotel. ‘A few minutes with those stretcher-bearers and I was reminded. The local people here
