Fixing a severe glance on Sergeant Dexter he asked, “Why didn’t you make a report of this first fight between these two men?”
“I knew nothing about it,” was the chagrined answer. “I was certainly not in the barrack when it occurred.”
“Humph!” came the dry repetition. “You seem to be hunting for trouble, my man,” was the commanding officer’s grim opinion, as he looked poor Ignace sternly over. “If you’ve anything to say, I’ll hear it.” The tone indicated that more than enough had already been said. “What’s your name? Speak up.”
Ignace drew a deep, sighing breath. Raising his head with a proud little air, which he had unconsciously borrowed from Jimmy, he said, with slow dignity: “I am one a Pole, Ignace Pulinski, sir. I am no the liar, sir. Now say I the trut’ all. You no believe, I can no help.” Quite unemotionally, and with frequent groping for a word that eluded him, Ignace proceeded in his broken speech to give a detailed account of Bixton’s repeated churlish conduct toward himself since he had first encountered him in Company E’s barrack. Neither did the K. O. interrupt him, but allowed him to go on talking, his keen eyes never leaving the Polish boy’s stolid face.
“Yeserday my three Brothar get the pass,” pursued Ignace doggedly. “Then I all ’lone. Bob say, ‘you stay wake we come back.’ I say, ‘So will I.’ Taps him come, I ver’ sleepy, but no go sleep. So wait I an’ watch. After while think now is mid the night. My Brothar no yet come. I look to the stair, then, know I no why, look round. I see this man—so.” Ignace leaned forward to illustrate. “He have the hand reach out the rack Jimmy, my ver’ bes’ Brothar. I think he go steal something. Once we write the lettar. Leave on the shelf Jimmy. In morning no lettar. So las’ night think him mebbe t’ief. I think catch, keep till sergeant come. Then him yell an’ hit me the nose. So am I the mad. Hit, too; ver’ strong poonch. So is it the fight,” ended Ignace placidly, using the precise words in which he had recounted the fray to his bunkies.
“That’s a big lie from beginning to end! He’s trying to save his own face.” This time it was Bixton who forgot himself. His face aflame, he turned menacingly upon his accuser. “You dirty, foreign trash——”
“Hold your tongue! Such language is unbecoming enough in itself, let alone in the presence of your commanding officer.” The probing eyes of the commandant grew steely, his jaws came together with a snap on the last word. “The stories of you two men don’t agree in the least, except on one point,” he continued harshly. “You are both guilty of brawling and thus disgracing the Service. Sergeant——” Still standing at rigid attention, the non-com. tried to look even more attentive. “Bring the man you say knows something of this affair from the other room.”
Smartly saluting, the sergeant wheeled and stepped to the door of an inner room. Flinging it open he disappeared, to return almost instantly with a soldier, whose dark, rugged face was set in purposeful lines.
“This is the man, sir,” reported the sergeant.
Momentary consternation showed itself in Bixton’s face as he viewed the unexpected witness; then a sneer played about his lips. Ignace, however, stared at the newcomer in blank, absolute wonder. The sergeant’s report, read out by the K. O., had contained nothing about this third party, who, nevertheless, it seemed, had something to say about last night’s disturbance. Now the Pole listened with strained attention as Private Schnitzel, the man whose acquaintance he had made only yesterday, made prompt replies to the major’s preliminary questions.