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This time it was the sergeant who went forward first. Dick thrilled with admiration when he saw the French non-com pass the last of the barbed wire and creep up to the top of the German parapet, flattening himself and peering over and down.
Then, distinguishing the British uniform, he drew a pistol and shouted to the party to surrender. "Surrender yourself!" exclaimed the Rhodesian sergeant, raising his revolver. The Hun's reply was a shot that nicked the lobe of the non-com.'s right ear. Almost immediately the latter returned the compliment, shooting the German dead on the spot.
"No speaker, sir," said the Sergeant-Major gruffly; "but I should have been a proud man if I had had the drilling of such a body of men." "Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen," said the young chief, "it is all imitation, and the teaching of an old non-com, whom I have had with me ever since I came back from England. Only too glad to have come in time.
He said, 'You be d d. I then sent word to the division commander-in-chief, and told him how I had saved Gray Oaks when his brigadier ran away, and he said, 'You be d d. I've bin 'You be d d' from the lowest non-com. to the commander-in-chief, and when I was at last exchanged, I was exchanged, gentlemen, for two mules and a broken wagon. But I'm here, gentlemen as I was thar!"
Fuselli looked enviously towards the kitchen and thought of the day when he would be a non-com too. "I got to get busy," he said to himself earnestly. Overseas, under fire, he'd have a chance to show what he was worth; and he pictured himself heroically carrying a wounded captain back to a dressing tent, pursued by fierce-whiskered men with spiked helmets like firemen's helmets.
I know Hawley, and do not think he would object. What is your regiment?" "Seventh Cavalry." "Oh, yes, just organized; before that?" "The Third." "I see you are a non-com corporal?" "Sergeant, sir, since my transfer." "Second enlistment?" "No, first in the regulars the Seventh was picked from other commands." "I understand. You say first in the regulars. Does that mean you saw volunteer service?"
Involuntarily he stopped and tried to turn back; but the non-com, took his arm and pushed him forward, not roughly, yet in such fashion that the prisoner gave up his attempt. "You fool, you!" said his companion; "if you had said you were quite sick with shame for your silly behaviour, you'd have got off with a month!"
He had sworn never to set foot in that house again, and in all his four years of army life had not exchanged a single letter with that father whom he now addressed so curtly. The marauders had drawn apart and were conversing excitedly among themselves; what, the old man's son, and a "non-com."! it wouldn't answer; better go and try their luck elsewhere!
Even the doorkeeper was a non-com, who took my name, entered it in a book with the precise time I called, took down his telephone, merely mentioned my name, hung up the receiver, called an orderly who conducted me through a corridor and three anterooms full of civilian clerks and finally landed me in the private office of Colonel Z S . He wore the undress uniform of the Imperial Army, greeted me pleasantly, offered me a cigar and tactfully asked: 'Have you positively made up your mind to continue in this service?
I could plainly note the dark shadows of the fellows as they filed out past the fire, but I never ventured to take eye or gun off the man I watched. "How many remain there now?" "Seven." "Any non-com, among them?" "A corporal." "Have him take them all south on the cross-roads."
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