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And aloud, grimly. "Thank you very much, sir. But I shall ask you to excuse me." Both the Colonel and the Adjutant were pardonably shaken by this unparalleled response. The Colonel barked: "Why? Teetotaller?" "No, sir. But I've eaten nothing since lunch, and a glass of whisky might make me drunk." Colonel Hullocher might have offered George some food to accompany the whisky, but he did not.
Colonel Hullocher glared in silence for a moment, and was gone. The clerk slipped out after him. The Adjutant rose: "Now, Cannon, we're all very busy." And shook hands. The same afternoon, indeed within about two hours of his entrance into the Army, George found himself driving back from Wimbledon to London in a motor-bus.
Without saying anything else Colonel Rannion took up the telephone. In less than half a minute George heard him saying: "Colonel Hullocher.... Ask him to be good enough to come to the telephone at once.... That you, Hullocher?" George actually trembled. He no longer felt that heavy weight on his stomach, but he felt 'all gone. He saw himself lying wounded near a huge gun on a battlefield.
When, immediately before lunch, the Major was called away to lunch with Colonel Hullocher, the excitement of the mess seemed to boil over. The enormous fact was that the whole Division yeomanry, infantry, and artillery had been ordered to trek southward the next morning.
Silence reigned in No. 2 Battery, except for the faint jingling restlessness of the horses. Then Colonel Hullocher and his Adjutant pranced into sight. The Adjutant saluted the Major and made an inquiry. The Major saluted, and all three chatted a little.
By rights the tyrant ought to have rolled off his horse dead. But Colonel Hullocher was not thus vulnerable. He could give glance for glance with perhaps any human being on earth, and indeed thought little more of subalterns than of rabbits. He finished, after a pause: "You will be good enough, Major, to let this officer report to me personally when he has found the convoy." "Certainly, sir."
"Colonel Hullocher thinks you may as well see to your kit at once, provided of course you pass the doctor and you are ready to work for nothing until your commission comes along." "Oh! Naturally!" George agreed, in a dream. He was saying to himself, frightened, astounded, staggered, and yet uplifted: "Get my kit! Get my kit! But it's scarcely a minute since I decided to go into the Army."
He was directed to a small, frowzy apartment, which apparently had once been the land-lord's sitting-room. Two officers, Colonel Hullocher and his Adjutant, both with ribbons, were seated close together at a littered deal table, behind a telephone whose cord, instead of descending modestly to the floor, went up in sight of all men to the ceiling.
I'm rather old-fashioned. But I have to buy three pairs suits for Colonel Hullocher at Swan & Edgar's. Oh! Bother it! Have you any money? I forgot to take some out of the bag."
Perhaps he had been lucky the hazard of a lighted cigarette in the darkness! Yes, but luck was in everything. The credit was his, and men duly gave it to him, and he took it. He thought almost kindly of Colonel Hullocher, against whom he had measured himself. The result of the match was a draw, but he had provided the efficient bully with matter for reflection. After all, Hullocher was right.
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