I was getting ready for bed, when in rushed Muddy, frantically barking and yelping to give me welcome.
“De colonel thought you’d like to see him powerful well,” said Sam, “so I lets him out.” And Muddy snuggled down beside me to share my bed, as he had often done before.
It was late in the morning when Sam called me to breakfast where I found the colonel waiting for me.
“We shall have time for breakfast, this morning,” he said, “as we are likely to have a little peace now; for yesterday we sent the enemy to the right about face with a kick! But all the same we’ve got orders to hold ourselves in readiness to move at a moment’s notice, Captain.”
“Lieutenant sir,” I corrected. “You forget.”
“No,” said my colonel, “you’ve been promoted. We all agree that you deserved it, for the fight you put up when you were captured. Captain Cross has been promoted to be major.”
“I am ready to begin fighting right now,” I said, blushing with pride in spite of myself; “but I don’t know how I shall fill a captain’s place, though I suppose that I can walk around in it.”
“Oh, that will come,” said my colonel, “and you can study up a little while you are on permission. I have been promoted too: Brevet Brigadier if that is promotion.”
“Fine!” I said. “I guess I will stay with the company and learn my duties; but I’d like to get this hole in my arm fixed up a little.”
“Wounded! I hadn’t noticed it; why didn’t you mention it before? Here, orderly, show the captain the way to the surgeon’s station.” Then looking at my arm from which I had removed the bandage, preparatory to putting on a clean one, he said, “Whew! It’s gangrened; you can’t go on duty in that shape!”