“It would be—” vehemently interrupted Morton, then breaking off short as though at loss for descriptive of sufficient strength. He seemed to swell with passion as he clinched his fists and fairly stood upon his toes an instant, his strong white teeth grinding together. “It would be—simply hell!” he burst in again, hoarse and quivering. “It would ruin—everything! Can’t the General give the order to-night?” he asked with intense eagerness, while the young officer, taking him by the arm, had led him again to the light of the guardhouse lamps at the front. The sergeant and a group of soldiers straightened up and faced them, listening curiously.
“It may be even impossible to see the General,” answered Gray doubtfully. “Take Morton into the guardroom till I get back, sergeant, and let him warm himself thoroughly.” Don’t put him with the prisoners till I return, and so saying he had hastened away. Gordon, his friend and adviser, had left camp and gone visiting over in the other division. The lights at general headquarters were turned low. Even now, after having heard proofs of the innocence of the accused soldier, Gray knew that it was useless to appeal to the colonel. He could not understand, however, the feverish, almost insane, impatience of the lad for immediate release. Another day ought not to make so great a difference. What could be the reason—if it were not that, though innocent of the robbery of the storehouse, or of complicity in the sale of stolen goods, some other crime lay at his door which the morrow might disclose? All the loyalty of a Delta Sig was stretched to the snapping point as Gray paused irresolute in front of the adjutant’s tent, his quest there unsuccessful. The sergeant-major and a sorely badgered clerk were working late over some regimental papers—things that Morton wrote out easily and accurately.
“I suppose, sir, it’s no use asking to have the prisoner sent up here under guard,” said that jewel of a noncommissioned officer. “Yet the colonel will be savage if these papers ain’t ready. It will take us all night as things are going.”
Gray shook his curly head. “Go ask, if you like, but—Morton’s in no shape to help you——”
“Has he been drinking, sir?” said the sergeant-major, in surprise. “I never knew him——”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” said Gray hastily, “only he’s—he’s got—other matters on his mind! Bring me his overcoat. He said it was in his tent,” and the young officer jerked his head at the patch of little “A” tents lined up in the rear of those of the officers.
“Get Morton’s overcoat and take it to him at the guardhouse,” snapped the staff sergeant to the clerk. “Be spry now, and no stopping on the way back,” he added—well aware how much in need his assistant stood of creature comfort of some surreptitious and forbidden kind. The man was back in a moment, the coat rolled on his arm.
“I’ll take it,” said Gray simply. “You needn’t come.”
“Go on with it!” ordered the sergeant as the soldier hesitated. “D’ye think the service has gone to the devil and officers are runnin’ errands for enlisted men? An’ get back inside two minutes, too,” he added with portent in his tone. The subaltern of hardly two months’ service felt the implied rebuke of the soldier of over twenty years’ and meekly accepted the amendment, but—a thought occurred to him: He had promised Morton paper, envelopes and stamps and the day’s newspapers—the lad seemed strangely eager to get all the latter, and vaguely Billy remembered having heard that Canker considered giving papers to prisoners as equivalent to aid and comfort to the enemy.
“Take it by way of my tent,” said he as they started, and, once there it took time to find things. “Go back to the sergeant-major and tell him I sent you,” said Gray, after another search. “He needs you on those papers.”