He drove his doubled fists into his hips and his body convulsed with impotent rage. Lancaster followed him over to the table and sat down beside him.
“Listen, get a grip on yourself for God’s sake. You’re in bad enough as it is now. Unless you check up you’ll never get back to the front.”
“I know it,” he said. He lifted his eyes and said. “Chick, I guess I’m just a damned fool.”
Lancaster laughed and said, “Forget it. Beat it over to see Carew and when you get back I’ve got a spot of Three-Star stuck away.”
Dorman tried to smile.
“Okay,” he said.
He expected the major to raise hell, but he was wrong. Max Carew had not won his majority for nothing. He knew men. He was to prove that later when he emerged from combat work as one of the finest squadron leaders of the war. He could be, and was sometimes, hardboiled; but to him each man represented an individual case and was not to be treated by a general formula.
“Sit down,” he said to Dorman, when the latter had come over to the office.
Dorman sat down, a little surprised, and waited for the blow.
Carew turned his chair around and said, “Boy, you’ve got a lot of things in your mind that you’ve got to get out.” He paused and waited, but Dorman didn’t say anything so he went on. “You’re sore at everybody. You’ve been sore for a month. Well, that’s not getting you anywhere.”