"Where have you been, Henderson?"
"I was in the cookhouse, sir, when a shell struck it, smashing
everything in sight, and I lost complete control o' my nerves and
started for the wagon lines wi'out knowing what I was doing or where I
was going, and didna' come to mysel' until Grant ran across me in the
dugout."
"That won't go, Henderson. Orderly room at ten-thirty in the morning.
It's the first case of cowardice in this unit and I'll take damned good
care that it will be the last. Grant, escort the prisoner back to the
wagon lines."
I could not help feeling sorry for the poor devil because, coward though
he was, his was one of those personalities that carried with it a sort
of likeableness, somewhat after the fashion of our time-honored
Falstaff, and his funk under fire made him liable to the extreme
penalty,--a firing squad. His teeth chattered like the keys of a
typewriter as he asked me, "What do you think will come o' it, Grant? Do
you think he really means it?"
I hadn't the heart to tell him what I really thought and strove to jolly
him by saying that the Major would feel in a better humor in the
morning, "and besides," said I, "when we take back those trenches
tomorrow, he will get over his flurry.
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