George, like everyone else, had known for a long time there wouldn't be enough commissions to go around. Why, he wondered now, had the fellows chosen for dismissal been held for this public announcement of failure. And in many cases, he reflected, there was no failure here beyond the insolvency of a system. Among those who would go back to the world with averted faces were numbers who hadn't really come at all within the vision of their instructors, beyond whom they could not appeal. And within a year this same reluctant army would be reaching out eagerly for inferior officer material. And these men would not forget. You could never expect them to forget.
Two messengers emerged from the orderly room and commenced to thread the restless, apprehensive groups, seeking, with a torturing slowness finding candidates to whom they whispered. The chosen ran to the orderly room, entered there, according to instructions, or else formed a long line outside the window where sat the supreme arbiter, the giver, in a way of life and death, the young fellow from West Point.
Men patted George on the back.
"You'll go among the first, George."
But he didn't. He paced up and down, watching the many who waited for the whisper which was withheld, waited until they knew it wouldn't come, expressed then in their faces thoughts blacker than the closing night, entered at last into the gloomy barracks where they sat on their bunks silently and with bowed heads.
Was that fate, through some miracle of mismanagement, reserved for him? It couldn't be. The fellow had seen him at the start. George had forced himself to get along with him, to impress him. Somebody touched George on the arm. A curiously intense whisper filled his ear.
"You're wanted in the orderly room, Morton."
In leaving the defeated he had an impression of a difficult and sorrowful severance.
In the orderly room too many men rubbed shoulders restlessly. A relieved sigh went up. It was as if everyone had known nothing vital could occur before his arrival. The young West Pointer was making the most of his moment. The war wasn't likely to bring him another half so great.
Washington, he announced, had cut down the number of higher commissions he had asked for.