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'Corporal, said Henkel to the non-com, who had taken the place of the brute whom Roy had finished, 'take the prisoners back and lock them up securely. Set a guard over them. 'Mind this that you are responsible for them, he added harshly.
I spoke of the corporal's language, but declined to repeat it One of the squad, who was called in evidence, was less particular, and the colonel, in effect, read the young non-com, a dreadful lesson and committed me to cells for ten days, giving orders that I was not to be disgraced by which was meant that I was not to receive the prison crop which is made to mark the ordinary turbulent soldier.
"I somedings hears, too," spoke a guttural voice, with a foreign accent. "Might not it perhaps be " "Cut that talk, Iggy!" sharply commanded the first speaker. "Do you want the lieutenant dropping in on us!" And Corporal Robert Dalton cautiously moved nearer his fellow non-com., Sergeant Franz Schnitzel.
"We're only going for a bit of a reconnaissance," said Sergeant Briggs gruffly as, after a sharp, non-com glance at his men, he settled down close to my side. "How do you know?" I asked, speaking as if to a friend, and not to a superior officer on parade. "No orders for water-bottles and rations, my lad.
"Ah guess some day Ah'll go into a movie show an' when they turn on the lights, who'll Ah see but ma ole frien' Andy raggin' the scales on the pyaner." "Something like that.... How d'you like being a corporal, Chris?" "O, Ah doan know." Chrisfield spat on the floor between his feet. "It's funny, ain't it? You an' me was right smart friends onct.... Guess it's bein' a non-com."
He began to ask the usual questions. Thane answered in a flat, dull voice, and the non-com filled out a form, scribbling on a line or checking a box as each question was answered. Finally he shoved the form aside and looked up at Thane for the first time. "Oh, an Alien, eh? That should be interesting for you." He jerked a thumb at the bench. "Sit there till you're called."
Each battalion had a shower bath, and there was no excuse for any man to be dirty. Even at that it was not very long before those little "somethings" which are no respecters of persons, be he private, non-com, commissioned officer or general, found their way into the camp. I'll never forget the first gray-back I found on me.
Every morning an officer stood at the gate as we marched out to the moor, to take "Eyes right" and a salute, for no useful purpose that we could see except to belittle a British soldier's pride. As corporal I was supposed to give that command to my squad but rather than do so I took my stripes down, although that ended my immunity as a "non-com" from the labour of cutting peat.
The class work was largely pure rot arbitrary mathematics, antiquated botany, hesitating German, and a veritable military drill in the conjunction of Greek verbs conducted by a man with a non-com. soul, a pompous, sandy-whiskered manikin with cold eyes and a perpetual cold in the nose, who had inflicted upon a patient world the four-millionth commentary on Xenophon.
If you ever see a non-com in this company losing his temper set him straight at the first chance." "Yes, sir." "But don't make the correction in hearing of the squad unless the case is a flagrant one." "No, sir," Sergeant Kelly promised, his eyes smileless. "How near is the company to full strength this morning?" "Only twelve men short, sir.
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