The door in the next room opened and shut. The A.P.M. had returned from lunch....
Ten minutes later the door opened again. I heard Macgillivray’s voice, and it was not pitched in dulcet tones. He had run up against minor officialdom and was making hay with it.
I was my own master once more, so I forsook the company of the orderly. I found a most rattled officer trying to save a few rags of his dignity and the formidable figure of Macgillivray instructing him in manners.
“Glad to see you, Dick,” he said. “This is General Hannay, sir. It may comfort you to know that your folly may have made just the difference between your country’s victory and defeat. I shall have a word to say to your superiors.”
It was hardly fair. I had to put in a word for the old fellow, whose red tabs seemed suddenly to have grown dingy.
“It was my blame wearing this kit. We’ll call it a misunderstanding and forget it. But I would suggest that civility is not wasted even on a poor devil of a defaulting private soldier.”
Once in Macgillivray’s car, I poured out my tale. “Tell me it’s a nightmare,” I cried. “Tell me that the three men we collected on the Ruff were shot long ago.”
“Two,” he replied, “but one escaped. Heaven knows how he managed it, but he disappeared clean out of the world.”
“The plump one who lisped in his speech?”
Macgillivray nodded.