He grinned malevolently, however, when he saw the captain and the two lieutenants of the troop leaving camp in a machine in the direction of the city.
“All right,” he said to himself. “We’ll see something later, that’s all. The old boy will be crazy about this.”
The old boy being the general.
In the barracks black despair was in Sergeant Gray’s heart. He made a wild effort to retrieve his new uniform from the heap which was to be carried out and burned, but the troop were a unit against him.
“Aw, keep still!” they said in effect. “You got us into this, and you’ll stick it out with us.”
“I’ve got leave, fellows,” he appealed to the other noncoms. “I’ve got an engagement too.”
“We know. To breakfast with the general,” sneered the stable sergeant. “Well, you’d better send your regrets.”
At ten-fifteen the troop, having waited an hour, were growing uneasy, and Sergeant Gray was stationed at a window, watching three men in slickers tending a fire of mammoth proportions. At ten-thirty, going to a window in one of the two upper squad rooms, he made out a small car down the road, and a girl with a pink hat in it. There was no supply sergeant in sight.
At ten forty-five a scout patrol in slickers having been sent out reported the supply sergeant not in the camp quartermaster’s office, as observed through a window, and the troop officers as having gone for the day.
Black despair, then, in a hundred and ninety-five hearts, but in no one of them such agony as in Sergeant Gray’s. Clad in an army slicker he made a dozen abortive attempts to borrow a uniform from tall men in other companies, but inspection was on, and had commenced with the Headquarters Troop. Not a man dared to be found with less than “breeches, O. D. wool, prs., two.” And blouses the same.