V
The evening the commissions were awarded George appreciated the ingratitudes and cruelties of service rather more keenly than he had done even as a youngster at Oakmont.
"It's like tap day at New Haven," Lambert said, nervously.
He had paused for a moment to compare notes with George. He hurried now to his own organization for fear something might have happened during his absence. The suspense increased, reaching even George, who all along had been confident of success.
In the dusk the entire company crowded the narrow space between the barracks—scores of men who had been urged by passionate politicians to abandon family, money, everything, for the discomforts, sometimes the degradations, of this place, for the possible privilege of dying for a cause. It had had to be done, but in the hearts of many that night was the fancy that it might have been done rather differently. It was clear, for instance, that the passionate and patriotic politicians hadn't troubled to tear from a reluctant general staff enough commissions for the size and quality of these first camps. Many of the men, therefore, who with a sort of terror shuffled their feet in the sand, would be sent home, to the draft, or to the questioning scorn of their friends, under suspicion of a form of treason, of not having banged the drum quite hard enough. And it wasn't that at all.
George, like everyone else, had known for a long time there wouldn't be enough commissions to go around. Why, he wondered now, had the fellows chosen for dismissal been held for this public announcement of failure. And in many cases, he reflected, there was no failure here beyond the insolvency of a system. Among those who would go back to the world with averted faces were numbers who hadn't really come at all within the vision of their instructors, beyond whom they could not appeal. And within a year this same reluctant army would be reaching out eagerly for inferior officer material. And these men would not forget. You could never expect them to forget.
Two messengers emerged from the orderly room and commenced to thread the restless, apprehensive groups, seeking, with a torturing slowness finding candidates to whom they whispered. The chosen ran to the orderly room, entered there, according to instructions, or else formed a long line outside the window where sat the supreme arbiter, the giver, in a way of life and death, the young fellow from West Point.
Men patted George on the back.
"You'll go among the first, George."
But he didn't. He paced up and down, watching the many who waited for the whisper which was withheld, waited until they knew it wouldn't come, expressed then in their faces thoughts blacker than the closing night, entered at last into the gloomy barracks where they sat on their bunks silently and with bowed heads.
Was that fate, through some miracle of mismanagement, reserved for him? It couldn't be. The fellow had seen him at the start. George had forced himself to get along with him, to impress him. Somebody touched George on the arm. A curiously intense whisper filled his ear.
"You're wanted in the orderly room, Morton."
In leaving the defeated he had an impression of a difficult and sorrowful severance.
In the orderly room too many men rubbed shoulders restlessly. A relieved sigh went up. It was as if everyone had known nothing vital could occur before his arrival. The young West Pointer was making the most of his moment. The war wasn't likely to bring him another half so great.
Washington, he announced, had cut down the number of higher commissions he had asked for.
George's name was read among the first.
"To be captain of infantry, United States Reserve—George Morton."
There was something very like affection in the West Pointer's voice.
"I recommended you for a majority, Mr. Morton. Stick to the job as you have here, and it will come along."
Lambert and Goodhue found him as he crowded with the rest through the little door. They had kept their captaincies. Even Goodhue released a little of his relief at the outcome.
"Any number busted—no time to find out whether they were good or bad."
The dark, hot, sandy street was full of shadowy figures, calling, shouting, laughing neurotically.
"Good fellow, but I had you on my list." "My Lord! I never expected more than a private in the rear rank." "What do you think of Blank? Lost out entirely." "Rotten deal." "Not the only one by several dozens." "Hear about Doe? Wouldn't have picked him for a shave tail. Got a captaincy. Teacher's pet."
Brutally someone had turned on the barrack lights. Through the windows the successful ones could see among the bunks the bowed and silent figures, must have known how sacrilegious it was to project their happiness into this place which had all at once become a sepulchre of dead sacrifices.
"I hope," George muttered to his friends, "I'll never have to see quite so much suffering on a battlefield."