"But why?"
"He gambles, sir."
Wegstetten walked up and down the room for a few moments, plunged in thought; then came to a stand in front of the sergeant-major.
"Thank you for being so open with me, Schumann," he said; "but I don't see how we can avoid it. Heppner has served eleven years, the colonel likes him well enough,--and he really is a capable man in all practical work."
He looked at the clock and went on: "Thank goodness, you will be here another six months, and we shall be able to get this year's recruits well started. Now it's half-past ten, and I must be off to the riding-school. What else was there? Oh yes, Frielinghausen. Have him here at eleven." And with a friendly "Good morning, Schumann," he left the room.
Schumann sat down again to his writing; but he did not take up the pen. What his captain had said about "desertion" kept running in his head. He himself sometimes had the feeling that it would be wrong of him to quit the service. Especially now, when these new-fangled ways made men of the good old stamp all the more necessary.
He had worked his way upwards through long years of service, only getting promotion by slow degrees; and eight years ago he had been made sergeant-major, Wegstetten getting his battery on the self-same day. Nowadays any young fool of a gunner might be made bombardier in a year, in another six months corporal, and then be set to teach others. Raw, empty-headed fellows that only thought of their own comfort, and disappeared from barracks the moment their time of service had expired, without leaving a trace behind. Chaps without the least pride or interest in the service;--nice sort of non-commissioned officers!
He looked round. Just so; Käppchen was still away. Where was that lazy beggar? and where was the bombardier? He shut up his book and went off on the hunt.
The bombardier was waiting outside the door: he "thought the captain was still in the orderly-room." That might be true, of course. He didn't know where Käppchen was.
The sergeant-major knew where to look, and went straight to the canteen. There indeed was Käppchen, just lighting a cigarette, after wiping from his thin black beard the froth of a freshly-drawn glass of beer.