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I was nearly breaking out swearing! in comes to me that hang him! that overbearing bully Yah! Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut! it put me out dreadfully, and I am speaking in haste, for Ripsy is a fine, trustworthy man my best non-com to complain to me about you making a chum, a regular companion, of that confounded, low-bred cockney rascal, Pegg. Hang him!
"Here, you, Corporal Dart, hold up that lantern. A little higher. Now left; now right. That will do." The non-com, who knew his Sergeant's motive, had opened the door of the swinging lantern, and flashed it to and fro so that its light fell athwart the stolid countenance of the sentry, who stood up as rigid as if he had been an effigy cast in bronze. "You have been drinking again, sir."
When she shook hands with the cheerful non-com. at the door of the hospital, she gave him a piece of gold which he was loth to accept till she said: "But take it as a souvenir of Colonel Byng's little ride with 'Old Gunter." With a laugh, he took it then, and replied, "I'll not smoke it, I'll not eat it, and I'll not drink it. I'll wear it for luck and God-bless-you!" It was almost midnight.
After I'd told them I was in the church I thought she would help me. But she couldn't." "What were you trying to do?" "I've done everything," she said in that slightly altered tone. "I don't know what I was going to do. I've been so confused." She bent her head and began to sob. "Take her away," the non-com said. The two guards led her into the cell block.
He ordered me to go with him and help him draw the next day's rations, also told me to take my waterproof. Every evening, from each platoon or machine-gun section, a Lance-Corporal and Private goes to the Quartermaster-Sergeant at the Company Stores and draws rations for the following day. Many arguments take place between the "Quarter" and the platoon Non-Com, but the former always wins out.
A staff sergeant, who had kept his wits sufficiently to rescue the roll from another headquarters non-com who was packing everything in one of the trucks, came hurrying forward with the roll. The names were droned off. The "Here!" that responded to each name was a full commentary on the mental attitude of the respondent.
"Sergeant Mock," said Greg, "we have just heard from our commanding officer. He demands the utmost from every officer, non-com and private. Are you prepared, and resolved, from this moment, to give the utmost that is in you at all times?" "Yes, sir!" replied Mock with great emphasis. "You mean what you are saying, Sergeant?" "Yes, sir." "Very good, then," continued the young captain.
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.
There are four hundred or so people here. Of them, twelve, one dozen, are soldiers. The rest are civilians. Ten enlisted men, a non-com of some sort, and something that appears to be an officer. The officer had a pistol, fully loaded. The non-com had a submachine gun, empty, with two loaded clips on his belt. The privates had rifles, empty, and no ammunition.
They form a clique as exclusive as a quarantined smallpox patient, and a 'non-com' like myself is barred out, until I win a pair of shoulder-straps; when my rank would make me socially possible. Meantime, I'm a sergeant, and if Lyn went to picking friends out of the ranks, I'm not sure they wouldn't drop her like a hot potato.
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