“How--how did it happen?” he asked tensely, addressing one of the infantrymen who had dragged the gassed victim up out of the trenches, a tall sergeant--a young sergeant--to whom it had fallen to inspect the gas-masks, to make sure that they were in perfect order, before the men entered the smoky trench-bays.
“Was he muddle-headed--slow about getting his mask on--when the alarm was given--the rattle sprung?”
“No, it didn’t ‘rattle’ him a bit,” the sergeant answered, meeting the question with level eyes. “He had his mask on quicker than I had, sir--properly adjusted, too--was jollying us through it----”
“Then--then the fault must have been yours. Something was wrong with the mask itself! As Gas N. C. O. for to-day, you were detailed to inspect all respirator-masks before the men entered the trenches. I’ll report you for neglect of duty. You’ll be put in the guardhouse for disobedience.... I don’t know how you came by your stripes!”
The lightning-flash of the officer’s eye withered the drab chevron upon the sergeant’s arm.
“Oh, mercy! that Gas N. C. O. (non-commissioned officer) is in for it now. He--he’ll get a ‘skinning.’ Iver’s temper is up. He’s going to ‘bawl him out,’ or, as they say in camp, give him a fearful rating.”
The hands of Iver’s brown-eyed sister clasped and unclasped feverishly as she spoke, hanging on tiptoe upon the skirts of the main group around the convulsed victim.
Her ears were deliriously strained to catch the next words of that figurative “bawling out” in which scorching satire would take the place of shrill sound. They were low, but fiery enough to sear even her, at a distance.
But before the sergeant had been thoroughly “skinned” an interruption occurred. An older man who happened to be passing, hurriedly--anxiously--joined the group.
He wore two silver bars upon each level shoulder.