A man who wore the stripes of a sergeant came up.
“Are we to withdraw, sir?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Spedding shortly.
“Will you give us a written order?” asked the man.
Spedding hesitated, then drew out a pocketbook and wrote a few hasty words on a sheet, tore it out, and handed it to the man.
The sergeant looked at it carefully.
“You haven’t signed it or dated it either,” he said respectfully, and handed it back.
Spedding cursed him under his breath and rectified the omissions.
“Now you may go.”
In the half-light, for only one solitary electrolier illuminated the vast hall, he thought the man was smiling. It might have been a trick of the shadows, for he could not see his face.