It was a great profession, that of the experienced
and successful courier.
I have never been a courier in quite this picturesque acceptation; and
yet, in a humbler sense, I have perhaps (to my own surprise) earned the
title. As an R.A.M.C. orderly I have more than once officiated as
travelling courier--yes, and to distinguished, if far from affluent,
invalids. They ought, at least, to rank as distinguished; for the reason
they needed a courier was because they had given their health, or limbs,
or eyesight, in defence of their country.
It happens only too often that when a patient is discharged from
hospital he is not fit to make his journey home alone. An orderly is
detailed to accompany him. Sometimes the lot has fallen on me. Generally
the trip is a short one, to some outlying suburb of London or to some
town or village in the home counties; but sometimes my flights have been
further afield, to Ireland, or Wales; and once I went to Yorkshire with
a blind man.
That Yorkshire expedition was singularly lacking in drama and in surface
pathos, yet its details remain with great clearness.
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