Realizing the soundness of Bob Dalton’s counsel, his three friends agreed to abide by it. Nevertheless, Jimmy was already firmly convinced that he had Bixton to thank for the strange disappearance of his letters. He did not hesitate to reiterate the statement to his chums. Iggy solemnly supported the theory out of pure devotion to Jimmy. Bob and Roger refused to commit themselves, thought privately they were of the same opinion that suspicion pointed strongly in Bixton’s direction. Both knew only too well that it needed but a word from them to set hot-headed Jimmy Blazes on the trail of the disagreeable rookie with a vengeance, a proceeding which, as Bob had sagely pointed out, would be not only futile but disastrous to Jimmy as well.
The exigencies of drill that morning drove the incident from the minds of the four for the time being. Keyed up to the highest pitch of desire to do well, Ignace partially retrieved himself in the eyes of the impatient drill sergeant. Though he could not know it, that efficient individual laid the Pole’s marked improvement of carriage to the dressing-down he had launched at Iggy on the previous day. Proud of his ability to “whip these rookies into shape” he showed considerably more patience with the still clumsy recruit, and the end of the morning drill found Ignace again escaping the dreaded awkward squad.
Not yet obliged to put in full time at drill, the squad to which Iggy and Jimmy belonged was dismissed at 10:30 not to resume their work until called out again after one o’clock Assembly. The instant he was released, Ignace hot-footed it for barracks, there to begin the “stoody” of Military Tactics as laid down by Bob. As the latter had shrewdly calculated, when the idea for them had taken shape in his fertile brain, he could not have devised a better way of impressing the first, simple Army commands on the slow-thinking Polish boy. Aside from feeling highly honored that his “smart” Brother should have gone to so much trouble for him, Ignace regarded the jingles with much the same delight which a child takes in its first book of nursery rhymes.
Reaching the barrack soon after Ignace, Jimmy was not surprised to find the latter seated on his cot, busily engaged in droning Rule No. 1 aloud. As it happened the squad-room was almost deserted. The three or four rookies it contained beside themselves were wholly occupied with their own affairs. Thus Ignace had a free field with no one to object to the sing-song murmur of his voice.
“Come on, Iggy,” Jimmy urged. “Let’s go over to the ‘Y’ and write our letters again. We’ll have plenty of time before mess, if we hustle.”
“I can no go.” Ignace stopped in the middle of a verse to make this stolid refusal.
“Don’t you want to write to your mother?”
“Y-e-a. Som’ day. No now. I am the busy. Better I stoody the rule firs’. Mebbe to-night write. Mebbe, no. Now am on job. So stay I. You see. This morning, no get the cross word. No yet go to what call you it, that bad squad? So have I do good. Soon much good. Pretty soon fine solder, I work hard.”
“All right. Keep up the good work.” Smiling, Jimmy turned away to get his note-paper. “Guess I’ll stay here and write,” he added, half to himself. Extracting a small leather portfolio from his suit-case, he settled himself on his cot, his back braced against the wall, and started the re-writing of his letters. Every now and then he raised his head to grin at Ignace, whose voice droned on, a steady, monotonous murmur. Far from disturbed by the sound, Jimmy was merely amused.