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I think if I hadn't been a non-com with a certain small amount of responsibility to live up to, I should have gone crazy. I managed to pull myself together and placed my men as comfortably as possible. The Germans were five hundred yards away, and there was but little danger of an attack, so comparatively few had to "stand to." The rest took to the shelters.
'tis best so!" he murmured softly, "a showdown wid no ould shtiff av a non-com like meself tu butt in. . . . An', onless I am mistuk that same will come this very morn, from th' luks av things. . . . Sind th' young wan is as handy wid his dhooks as Brankley sez he is! . . . Thin an' on'y thin will there be peace in th' fam'ly."
She had various but virtuous adventures, and married a non-com. in the Chasseurs d'Afrique, who chucked the army for her. The two kept a little hotel. Then the husband died, while the girls were children. The mother gave up the hotel and took in sewing. Everybody was interested in the family, they were so clever and exceptional, and people helped in the girls' education.
And they hurried from the room with the non-com., who they instinctively knew was their friend. What was this new experience that lay before them? They were not long in learning, and the information almost carried them beyond the restraints of good discipline and to the indulgence in three ripping good cheers.
Plainly the recruits were chafing under the lash of the corporal's tongue. But Barrow, a young man of twenty-two, who had received his chevrons after only four months of service, was in no mind to be easily pleased to-day. "You're the most stupid squad in the regiment!" the young non-com went on. "Your place is in the bullpen, not in the ranks."
What a splendid squadron-sergeant major, regimental sergeant-major, yea, what a fine officer he would have made, had he been reliable. But there, you can't have an officer, nor a non-com., either, who lies shrieking and blubbering on the floor coram publico, and screams to God and man to save him from the snakes that exist only in his own drink-deranged mind.
"Private McLean," he called to his batman who, for one-and-six a week, cared for his belongings, "tak' chairge o' the dog, wull ye, an' fetch 'im to the non-com mess when ye come to put ma kit i' gude order." Before he could answer the bombardment of questions about Bobby the door was opened again. The men dropped their knives and forks and stood at attention.
But the wonderful thing was that for six months McGilveray's legs were as steady as his head was right. At first the regiment was unbelieving, and his resolution to drink no more was scoffed at in the non-com mess. He stuck to it, however, and then the cause was searched for and not found. He had not turned religious, he was not fanatical, he was of sound mind what was it?
The big, grinning corporal escaped from captivity the same night, and McGilveray, as a non-com said, "Got shameful drunk." This is one explanation of the two things. McGilveray had assisted the grinning corporal to escape. The other explanation belongs to the end of the story. In any case, McGilveray "got shameful drunk," and "was going large" through the camp.
Shafto held out his hand; Ryan gave it a hard, convulsive squeeze, and in another moment the stalwart Irishman had saluted and tramped forth. "An old friend, I see," remarked Tremenheere. "Yes, I knew him in Burma." "He is a tip-top non-com., and has the D.C.M. and the French Cross; he worked miracles when his officers were killed at Ypres. They offered him a commission, but he wouldn't take it.
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