"Where's your rifle?" asked the lieutenant.
"Haven't got one, sir," I said.
The lieutenant called the platoon sergeant. "Sergeant," he snapped, "get that man a rifle." The sergeant doubled back to the barracks and returned with a rifle. The lieutenant moved away, and I had just begun to congratulate myself, when disaster overtook me. The platoon was numbered off. There was one man too many, and of course I was the man. The lieutenant did not waste any time in vain controversy. He ordered me out of his platoon.
"Where shall I go?" I asked.
"As far as I am concerned," he answered, "you can go straight to hell."
I left his platoon; but when I did, I carried with me the precious rifle. The sergeant, a thorough man, had been thoughtful enough to bring with it a bayonet.
The time had now come to risk everything on one throw. I did. In the army, all orders from the commanding officer of a regiment are transmitted through the adjutant. I knew that both the colonel and the adjutant had gone an hour ago, and could not now be reached. So I walked up to Captain March, the captain of D Company, saluted, and told him that I had been ordered to join his company.
"Ordered by whom?" he asked.
"By the Adjutant," said I, brazenly.
"I haven't had any orders about that," said Captain March.