“We’re under army regulations and you can’t give more than one command at a time.”
“When I get you up before the company commander for insubordination you’ll think otherwise. Wipe that smile off your face, you men back there.”
He manœuvred them about until he had exhausted all of the commands that he could think of. Then he ordered double-time, and they ran around the field, in the burning hot sun, for fifteen minutes. It would have been longer, but the company commander, passing by, ordered the platoon to be halted, and, calling the sergeant aside, told him to stop.
Such occurrences served the platoon well, for the men were angered and taken away from their more intimate troubles. In the evening the rifts of the day would be forgotten as they would sit around the bunk house and listen to old King Cole strum the guitar that the platoon had bought for him.
It was late in May, and the rains that had marked the springtime had almost stopped. It was evening, and a dull yellow moon soared gracefully above shoals of white, vaguely formed clouds. In the heavens the disk seemed like a ship, rocking a trifle as it rose over a sea of fluffy cotton.
Outside the bunk house members of the platoon stretched full length on the thick, soft grass, and listened to old King Cole pick tentatively at the strings of his guitar.
“Play us somep’n’ sad an’ boozy, Humpy.”
“Naw, play ‘The Little Marine Went Sailing Away.’”
“Give us ‘If I Had the Wings of an Angel.’”