"I fell down."
"Where?"
"On the steps."
"That's what I am always saying. You lazy fellows don't even know how to walk, and yet you imagine you are fit for a parade march."
George tried to make a joke of the affair, and, as a rule, he found that his men liked this mode of treatment; but to-day his words called forth no response. Petersen did not laugh, and the men standing by were evidently not amused by it. It struck George as a little odd, but still he thought no more of it, and turned to go, when by chance his glance fell upon Non-Commissioned Officer von Nissew, who was standing a little way from him by the window, and who was looking at Petersen with such a threatening and fiery glance that involuntarily George was frightened for a moment.
Then suddenly he grasped the real meaning of the affair. His instinct, which had made him dislike von Nissew from the very beginning, was not wrong then. What he had just seen made him determine to sift the matter to the bottom, so he now went back to the soldier and subjected him to a cross-examination. When did he fall? Who were there when it happened? Had he been to the ward-room and had his wounds dressed by the nurse? Who was in the room when he returned? But he could get nothing out of the man; he had fallen down, nobody had seen it, and he had told none, because he had not wanted to make himself ridiculous on account of his clumsiness.
"What do you know about the matter, Non-Commissioned Officer von Nissew?" said George, turning suddenly to him. "You are responsible for these men. Why did you not send this man to the ward-room? The wound looks frightful."
The non-commissioned officer continued staring at the soldier with threatening eyes. "I know nothing about it, sir. I only discovered the injury just before the inspection, and then it was too late to send him to the nurse."
George knew perfectly well that von Nissew was not speaking the truth, but he did not want to convict him of lying before the assembled men, on the ground of discipline and subordination.