“Don’t know. Never tried them,” he said, and walked off with great dignity.
So that was it, eh? It was all over the division already. Well, he’d show them! He’d——
The general, on horseback and followed by his aids, went by. Sergeant Gray stopped and rigidly saluted, but the general’s eyes and his mind were far away. Sergeant Gray looked after him with bitterness in his heart. Just at that moment he hated the Army. He hated the general. Most of all he hated to the depths of his soul those smug young officers who were the general’s aids-de-camp, and who ate with him, and swanked in and out of Headquarters, and ordered horses from the troop stables whenever they wanted them, and brought in their muddy automobiles to be cleaned, and sat with their feet on the general’s desk in his absence and smoked his cigarettes.
However, he cheered somewhat during the evening. They were ready to move. No more drill on hot and dusty parade grounds. No more long hikes. No more digging and shoveling and pushing of wagon trains out of the mud. No more infantry range, where a chap in the pit waved a red flag every time dust in a fellow’s eyes caused a miss, and the men round hissed “Raspberry!” No more bayonet school, where one jabbed a bunch of green branches representing the enemy, and asked breathlessly how it liked it. “War’s hell, you know, old top,” he had been wont to say, and had given the bunch another poke for luck.
Before, ahead, loomed the port of embarkation. The one imminent question of the barracks was—leave. Were they to have leave or were they not? To Sergeant Gray the matter was of grave importance. Leave meant a call on Mrs. Bud Palmer the faithless, in the new uniform, and the ceremonious returning to her of the photograph in the condiment can. Then it meant finding a nice girl—he was rather vague here—and going to the theatre and supper afterward, and perhaps to a roof garden still later.
“I’ll show her,” he muttered between his teeth. But the her was Mrs. Palmer.
In their preparations for departure the wager slipped from the minds of the troop. At two-thirty in the morning they went ostensibly on a hike, in full marching order, which meant extremely full—for a cavalry troop dismounted must carry their own equipment and a part that normally belongs on the horse. Went on a hike, not to return.
“Everything on me but the kitchen stove,” grumbled Sergeant Gray, and edged gingerly through the doorway to join the line outside. With extreme caution, because only the entire balance of the division and the people in three near-by towns knew that they were moving, they made their way to a railway siding and there entrained.
It was dawn when the cars moved out. Sergeant Gray had secured a window seat, and kept it in spite of heroic efforts to oust him. All round was his equipment, packed tight, his saddlebags, his blanket roll, his rifle and bandoleer, a dozen oranges in a paper sack, as many doughnuts. Over and round him, leaning out of his window at the imminent danger of their lives, were the supply sergeant, the second mess sergeant, the stable sergeant and two corporals.
“Not crowded, are you, general?” asked the stable sergeant politely.