“Yeah. And then he wonders why the M.P. don’t buy him one.”
“No!”
“Fact, and then the M.P. tells him to buy another one, and he does!”
“Yeah?”
“And then the officer of the day drives up, and the M.P. tells him there’s nobody in there, and they ride off, and now this bird wants to know what it’s all about!”
A howl of glee went up, and from that moment Tommy became a marked man at Issy-la-Boue, as he had a habit of doing everywhere he went.
A bugle blew at this juncture and all the flying officers rushed to their bunks and seized peculiar looking instruments with which they went outside. Still wondering, Tommy followed them.
It was dark by that time, but he could see them trouping into a brightly lighted building, and he followed. There they had formed in line, and were approaching a counter behind which stood cropheaded fat men who were ladling out what Tommy’s nose told him was food.
As they were served the flyers hurried away to seat themselves on long benches at bare wooden tables and wolf their meal. Tommy accosted the large man whom Long John had addressed as Fat, whose bulk had evidently cut down his speed so that he was near to the end of the line.