The title stuck. He was general to the entire troop after that: behind his back, to the enlisted men; to his face and very, very politely, to the other noncoms.
“Oh, go to hell!” they finally tortured out of him; and they retired, grinning, until some wit or other would walk down the aisle, salute gravely and say: “Wish to report that bran muffins are on the way, sir.”
And as the train moved out the car took up that message of the artillery when a gun is fired. “On the way!” they yelled. “On the way! Bran muffin Number One on the way.”
“Been pretty busy, haven’t you?” he asked when at last the train had settled down to comparative quiet and the second mess sergeant was beside him.
“Not half as busy as you’ll have to be if you’re going to make good.”
However, the troop’s attention, fickle as the love of the mob, turned at last away from him and focused on the coloured porter. They insisted that he was of draft age, and that it was the custom anyhow to take the train crew to France with the troops it carried. They suggested craps, and on his protesting that he had no money they forced him to turn his pockets out, at the point of a revolver. And boylike, having bullied him until he was pale, they loaded him with cigarettes, candy, fruit and abuse.
The Headquarters Troop had a train of their own. Up behind the engine was the baggage car, turned into a kitchen with field ranges set up and the cooks already at work. Behind was the long line of tourist sleepers, each with its grinning but slightly apprehensive porter. And at the rear, where general officers of importance are always kept in war, was a Pullman containing the divisional staff.
When breakfast, served from the baggage car, was being carried down the aisles the train pulled into a tunnel and stopped. It was a very hot day, and in through the open windows rolled black and choking clouds of smoke. The troop coughed and cursed; but a moment later they burst into wild whoops of joy. The engine had pulled on a hundred yards or so, leaving the staff car in the tunnel.
The windows were full of jeering boys, eyes bent eagerly toward the rear. The end of the tunnel belched smoke like an iron furnace, and into it the joyous whoops of the troop penetrated like the maniacal yells of demons.
The general, who had just buttered a bran muffin, looked up and scowled. He took a bite of the muffin, but he was eating smoke.