At other times this most excellent lecture would have cheered me up, but the coming ordeal made me tremble, and I shuffled to the orderly-room with a heavy, heavy heart. I wasn’t worrying so much about what the ‘Old Man’ was going to say; it was the thought of my leave’s being ruthlessly cancelled that made me sick of life. Adela—alone in the drawing-room—waiting for me. To be denied that hour of crowded life seemed like cutting the legs off a race-horse.
As I passed the orderly-room I saw the commandant had a fierce and livery look, for it was a raw, wet morning.
‘Quick march—right wheel—left wheel—halt!—Hands back!—John Brown, sir,’ announced the sergeant-major.
The ‘com.’ looked up. His eyes were sparkling fire, his moustache was like that of a walrus, his cheeks were puffed with wrath, and his neck was red. He struck terror into my soul, and I quaked like a schoolboy. I didn’t know, of course, that this was the official orderly-room manner, specially cultivated by ancient mandarins to impress all tyros with the majesty of military law.
‘Well, young man,’ he blurted out, ‘I have seen your effusion. It’s all right for Comic Cuts, but it’s a personal affront to me. Do you think the army and the war a cock-eyed revue for flippant cadets to throw their mocking tosh’——
‘Really, sir, I’m—I’m’——
‘Silence, d—— you! You, a future officer, get an examination-paper given you, and you deliberately sit down and turn it into a music-hall farce. It’s outrageous! It’s a scandal! You’re a disgrace! When I commanded the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Camel Corps I would have shot an officer for such an offence. Do you realise the enormity of your crime? It’s almost treason. Under the Manual of Military Law I can do anything with you for this. And if I were the C.I.C. I might order you to be strung up by the thumbs. What do you mean, sah? What the devil do you mean, sah?’ he concluded, stabbing the blotting-paper with a pen and making it break into a thousand fragments.
It was impressive—awe-inspiring! I felt like a worm between two stones. I am five feet ten inches, but at the moment I seemed no higher than a grease-spot.
‘Please, sir, I’——
‘“Please” be d——! Speak like a soldier.’