Adventure Magazine Cover — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

8 Adventure between the sheets and kid that something hurts you?’ “Get out! The doc ’ud put a cast-iron splint on it, and order me into a hospital. How about toothache? That do? Do they give you bread and water for it?” So toothache was selected as an alibi, and Jeremy wrapped his jaw in a towel, after jabbing his cheek with a pin so as to remember on which side the pain should be. But it was artifice wasted, for Grim had turned a better trick. He had found an Australian doctor in the hospital for Sikhs— the only other Australian in Jerusalem just then—and brought him coo-ee-ing up-stairs in a way that proved he knew the whole story already. THE autopsy, as he called it, was a riot. We didn’t talk of anything but fights at Gaza—the surprize at Nazareth, when the German General Staff fled up the road on foot in its pajamas— the three-day scrap at Nebi Samwil, when Australians and Turks took and retook the same hill half-a-dozen times and parched enemies took turns drinking from one flask while the shells of both sides burst above them. It seems to have been almost like old-fashioned war in Palestine from their account of it, either side conceding that the other played the game. When they had thrashed the whole cam- paign over from start to finish, making maps on my bed with hair-brushes, razors and things, they got to talking of Australia; and that was all about fighting too: dog-fights, fist-fights between bullockies on the long road from Northern Queensland, riots in Perth when the pearlers came in off the Barrier Reef to spend their pay, rows in the big shearing sheds when the Union men objected to unskilled labor—you’d have thought Australia was one big battle-field, with nothing else but fights worth talking of from dawn till dark. The doctor was one of those tightly knit, dark-complexioned little men with large freckles and brown eyes, who surprize you with a mixture of intense domestic virtue and a capacity, that shouldn’t mix with it at all, for turning up in all the unex- pected places. You meet his sort every- where, and they always have a wife along, who worships them and makes a home out of tin cans and packing cases that would put the stay-at-home housekeepers to shame. They always have a picture on the wall of cows standing knee-deep in the water, and no matter what their circumstances are, there’s always something in reserve for guests, offered frankly without apology. Never hesitate with those folk, but don’t let them go too far, for they’ll beggar them- selves to help you in a tight place, if you'll let them. Ticknor his name was. He’s a good man. “Say, Grim: there’s a case in the Sikh hospital that ought to interest you,” he said at last. “Fellow from Damascus—Arab— one of Feisul’s crowd. He wouldn’t let them take him to the Zionist hospital—swore a Jew knifed him and that the others would finish the job if they got half a chance. They’d have been arguing yet, and he dead and buried, if I hadn’t gone shopping with Mabel. She saw the crowd first (I was in Noureddin’s store) and jabbed her way in with her umbrella—she yelled to me and I bucked the line. “The Jews wanted to tell me I had no right to take that chap to the Sikh hospital, and no more I had; so I plugged him up a bit, and put him in a cab, and let him take him- self there, Mabel and me beside him. Seeing I was paying for the cab, I didn’t see why Mabel should walk. Of course, once we had him in there he was too sick to be moved; but the army won’t pay for him, so I sent a bill to the Zionists, and they returned it with a rude remark on the margin. Maybe I can get the money out of Feisul some day; otherwise I’m stuck.” “T’ll settle that,” said Grim. ‘‘What’s the tune he plays?” “Utter mystery. Swears a Jew stabbed him, but that Damascus outfit blame the Jews for everythnig. He’s only just down from Damascus. I think he’s one of Feisul’s officers, although he’s not in uniform— prob’ly on a secret mission. Suppose you go and see him. But say, watch out for the doc on duty—he’s a meddler. ‘Tell him nothing!” “Sure. How about Jeremy? What’s the verdict?”’. ‘“‘What do you want done with him?” “T want him out of reach of trouble here pending his discharge. No need to certify him mad, is there?” “Mad? All Australians are mad. None of us need a certificate for that. Have you arrested him?” “Not yet.” cCoOmiclbool C@