Page:No More Parades (Albert & Charles Boni).djvu/71

 sergeant-major, now a very important solicitor's most confidential clerk, began whispering to the colonel

"The captain might as well take a spell as not We're through with all the men except the Canadian Railway batch, and they can't be issued with blankets not for half an hour not for three-quarters. If then! It depends if our runner can find where Quarter's lance-corporal is having his supper, to issue them" The sergeant-major had inserted that last speech deftly. The Staff officer, with a vague reminiscence of his regimental days, exclaimed:

"Damn it I wonder you don't break into the depot blanket store and take what you want"

The sergeant-major, becoming Simon Pure, exclaimed:

"Oh, no, sir, we could never do that, sir"

"But the confounded men are urgently needed in the line," Colonel Levin said. "Damn it, it's touch and go We're rushing " He appreciated the fact again that he was on the gawdy Staff, and that the sergeant-major and Tietjens, playing like left backs into each other's hands, had trickily let him in.

"We can only pray, sir," the sergeant-major said, "that these 'ere bloomin' 'Uns has got quartermasters and depots and issuing departments, same as ourselves." He lowered his voice into a husky whisper. "Besides, sir, there's a rumour round the telephone in depot orderly room  that there's a W.O. order at 'Edquarters  countermanding this and other drafts"

Colonel Levin said: "Oh, my God!" and consternation rushed upon both him and Tietjens. The frozen ditches, in the night, out there; the agonized waiting for men; the weight upon the mind like a weight upon