to get there as soon as I could. Scared as a Venusian deserter, I beat it for there as fast as ever I moved.
Wally was in delirium and was calling for Elsa, they told me. Who was Elsa? Where could they locate her? Wally was dying, but there was a chance he might pull through if only they could get her to his bedside. It might renew his will to live, they believed.
So I went in and sat by him and listened to the poor guy call for her, sick at the stomach myself and chewing my nails until eight o'clock when I could call the gal. He even began moaning for me to bring her to him. Me! Bless him; even in the fevered mind he relied on his old buddy. And me worrying how the hell this was going to work out, worrying about him getting well at all and about what would happen when and if he did.
Elsa Vaughn answered her phone at eight on the dot and I spilled her the news. She was crying when I finished.
"You say his eyes are bandaged and have to stay that way for a few days?" she sobbed. "He can't see me?"
"That's right," I gulped, almost as sorry for her as for Wally.
"I'll come out then," she resolved. "At least I can do that for him."
So she came and she took my place at Wally's side and she held his hand and talked with him in that soothing voice until she had him in his right mind again. And the doctors and the nurses, tip-toeing in and out, shook their heads and marveled at the miracle that was taking place before their eyes. It took about three hours until he drifted off into a natural sleep and Elsa Vaughn glided out at the doc's beckoning. I sneaked a look at Wally's chart and saw his temperature was down from a high of 104.2 to just a little over a hundred. How do you like that?
The girl told her story to the doc and he promised that her secret would be kept from the patient. She agreed when he asked her to come every day while the bandages were over his eyes but would go no further. There was a kind look to the doc's sour mug that made me like him better.
I saw Elsa Vaughn home after that, proud as hell of her on the way, veil or no veil.
SHE kept her word and spent more and more time at Wally's side. I don't know when the girl ever got any sleep, working nights and being there days.
And the way Wally made love to her was something to see. It made me get up and out most of the time, especially when he'd stroke her hair and eyes and run his fingers over her face saying over and over, "You're beautiful, beautiful. I can't wait till I can see you, dear." The girl would have to wipe away her tears as fast as they'd start running down her cheeks so he couldn't feel them. And that was just too much for an old hard-bitten cuss like me.
After about eight days the doc said he was going to unbandage Wally's face, so Elsa and I waited in the lounge for word from inside. When it came it was another jolt. A tough one.
The doc looked like an undertaker again. "He's blind," he told us. "Not marked, but totally blind."
Then Elsa Vaughn did break down. And I had to take a stroll again while the nurse tried to get her feeling better. I can see a guy get blown to bits—if he isn't a buddy—without batting an eye, but damned if I can stand a femme turning on the weeps. When they're real—like these were. But I was soon back with Elsa.
She quit crying quick-like and a shine came into those big eyes. "I can; I will," she exulted. "Oh, don't you
