Tietjens said:
"Not, I suppose, sir, any more unfortunate than any other unit working under a dual control for supplies. . . ."
The colonel said:
"What's that? Dual . . . Ah, I see you're there, Mackenzie. . . . Feeling well . . . feeling fit, eh?"
The whole hut stood silent. His anger at the waste of time made Tietjens say:
"If you understand, sir, we are a unit whose principal purpose is drawing things to equip drafts with. . . ." This fellow was delaying them atrociously. He was brushing his knees with a handkerchief! "I've had," Tietjens said, "a man killed on my hands this afternoon because we have to draw tin-hats for my orderly room from Dublin on an A.F.B. Canadian from Aldershot. . . . Killed here. . . . We've only just mopped up the blood from where you're standing. . . ."
The cavalry colonel exclaimed:
"Oh, good gracious me! . . ." jumped a little and examined his beautiful, shining, knee-high aircraft boots. "Killed! . . . . Here! . . . But there'll have to be a court of inquiry. . . . You certainly are most unfortunate, Captain Tietjens. . . . Always these mysterious . . . Why wasn't your man in a dug-out? . . . Most unfortunate. . . . We cannot have casualties among the Colonial troops. . . . Troops from the Dominions, I mean. . . ."
Tietjens said grimly:
"The man was from Pontardulais . . . not from any Dominion. . . . One of my orderly room. . . . We are forbidden on pain of court martial to let any but Dominion Expeditionary Force men go into the dugouts. . . . My Canadians were all there. . . . It's an A.C.I. local of the eleventh of November. . . ."