He sat behind a very large table, with Captain Sandeman, his adjutant, standing beside him. Alf and Bill were marched in by the regimental sergeant-major, an unctuous person very different from the martinet who controlled the 5th Battalion at the front.
"Private Higgins, sir, and Private Grant," he announced—as who should say, "Mr. and Mrs. Platt-Harcourt, my lady!"
"Higgins!" repeated the Colonel, gazing ferociously at Alf from under his beetling eyebrows. "Higgins! Higgins!!"
"Yessir!" said Alf, thinking that confirmation was being required.
"Be quiet!" roared Colonel Watts, with such suddenness that Alf took a step backwards in alarm. "And stand still!"
"Stand still, man, and only speak when you are spoken to," said the oily voice of the R.S.M. in Alf's ear.
The colonel fixed the unfortunate Alf with a protruding eye, and continued his baleful glare until his victim was on the very verge of crying out. His one idea seemed to be to intimidate Alf; he paid no attention whatever to Bill, who was standing stiffly to attention, his eyes fixed in a lack-luster stare on the wall above the adjutant's head.
"Well?" the C.O. ground out at last between his teeth. The sergeant-major gave a consequential little cough and signed to the sergeant of the guard to give his evidence.
"These men arrived 'ere, sir, in the early hours of this mornin', about four o'clock, and failed to give any satisfactory account of themselves. They 'ad no kit, sir, an' no passes. They state that they 'ave been transferred to us from the Expeditionary Force, sir, but they 'ave no papers to prove it."
"Good God!" shouted the colonel. "This is disgraceful. More incompetence! If I've written one letter complaining of this kind of thing I've written a dozen. Men come here without papers, without kit, without orders, and expect us to look after 'em. The Army in France is one mass of incompetent fools, in my opinion. It's a scandal, Sandeman."