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The day that he was detailed as Brigade Sniper, he celebrated his appointment by blowing the whole platoon to fags. Being a Yank, Old Scotty took a liking to me and used to spin some great yams about the plains, and the whole platoon would drink these in and ask for more. Ananias was a rookie compared with him.
"I don't know," said Nan. "That or something. Deaf, maybe. But not right. I hear something. It's Charlotte. Kiss me, Rookie. On my forehead" he did it "on my forehead, on my right cheek, on my left cheek, on my chin. No, that's all. That's good-night, Rookie darling Rookie! It is Charlotte. I'll let her in."
"She wouldn't join any relief work," said Nan, relentlessly rehearsing. "She said the most frightful things and said them publicly. She ought to have been arrested, only they didn't take the trouble. She wasn't a Quaker. There was nothing inbred to excuse her. We're decent folks, Rookie, we Hamiltons. But she stood for non-resistance.
We've got to bring that man down, and we've got to give him the law. Simple thing, isn't it this bringing a prisoner down from Wekusko! Any rookie could do it, couldn't he? And yet " The inspector paused to light his cigar, which had gone out. Then he added: "If you'll do this, Steele and care for it I'll see that you get your promotion." As he finished, he tossed the photograph across the desk.
"Responsibility?" he repeated. "What responsibility is there I don't want to take about you?" "You don't want me to be a woman," said Nan. "You want me to be a little girl, always adoring you, just enough, not too much. You've been adored enough by women, Rookie." They both knew she was talking in a hidden language. It was not women she meant; it was Aunt Anne.
But I don't believe I'd have told Martin yes, if he'd asked me about his sins. He's scared blue. He was there at the gate when I went in. Shook like a palsy, kept saying he didn't know didn't think nobody need ask him " "What did you say, Rookie?" "Nothing. I went in to Tenney. Now I'll go back." "You won't come in and have a bite? Nice supper, Rookie. Saved for you." "No. Not to-night."
McTabb had quit the Service because of a bad leg. "Rookie!" he gasped. He drew himself up, and McTabb's hands grasped his shoulders. "S'help me, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!" he exclaimed again, amazement in his voice and face. "Joe brought you in five minutes ago, and I ain't had a straight squint at you until now. Billy MacVeigh!
"No," he said then, "she mustn't. She must come to my house or yours." "No," said Nan again, still keeping her hand on his arm, and aching so with pity that she was humbly grateful to him for letting her touch his sleeve, "she mustn't do that either. It would be queer, Rookie. It would 'make talk. She wouldn't like that. Don't you see?" He did see.
What is it, Rookie? what happened?" "The thing that's happened," said Raven, with a little reminiscent laugh, "is that Tenney's afraid of his wife. And he's cut his foot and can't get away from her. I call it the most ironical of time's revenges I've ever had the pleasure of seeing." He went on and told her the story of Tenney's disabled foot. Nan, listening, did not take it in.
It took McCuaig some days to discover that in these frequent fatigues and special duties, he was undergoing punishment, but once made, the discovery wrought in him a cold and silent rage, which drove him to an undue and quite unwonted devotion to the canteen, which in turn transformed the reserved, self-controlled man of the wilds into a demonstrative, disorderly and quarrelsome "rookie" aching for trouble.
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