Many an anxious perplexity had harassed Captain Howard’s repose in the
night watches during his tour of duty at Fort Prince George. Never one
like this, he thought. Try as he might, the problem seemed to have
no possible solution. Every plan bristled with difficulties. Every
chance seemed arrayed against his eager hopes. The British cannon were
in the Cherokee country, withheld, in defiance of the terms of the
treaty, capable of incalculable harm both to the garrison as matters
now stood, and to the frontier settlements in the future. The moral
effect of supinely permitting the Indians to overreach and outwit the
government was in itself of disastrous possibilities, reinstating their
self-confidence, renewing their _esprit de corps_, and fostering that
contempt for the capacities of their enemy, from which the Cherokees
always suffered as well as inflicted so many futile calamities.
The cannon must be surrendered in accordance with the terms of the
treaty, or he would be obliged to call down the retributive wrath of
the British War Office upon the recalcitrant and perfidious Cherokee
nation. But while with his handful of troops he awaited British
aid,--an expeditionary force sent out to compel compliance with the
treaty and to discipline the Indians,--he must needs expect to sustain
the preliminary violence of such wars. Fort Prince George might well
be razed to the ground by the very cannon in contention, the settlers
to the southward would certainly be massacred as of old, and all the
dearly-bought fruits of the late terrible conflict would be lost and
brought to naught. If it were only possible to secure the cannon
without an appeal to the government, without jeopardizing the peace of
the frontier!
Captain Howard held himself no great tactician, but when he rose in
the morning from a sleepless pillow he believed he had formulated a
scheme to compass these ends which might possibly stand the strain of
execution. True, it had its special and great dangers, against which
he would provide as far as he was able, but he feared nevertheless it
would cost some lives. And then a new and troublous doubt rose in his
mind. It would not be consonant with his duty to again absent himself
from Fort Prince George at this crisis. He must needs delegate the
active execution of his scheme, and somehow the material on which he
could depend impressed him as strangely unavailable when it came to
such a test. Mervyn, by virtue of his rank, might seem best fitted
for the enterprise, and he had been considered a steady and capable
officer. The matter was extra hazardous. It necessitated a clear
judgment, an absolute obedience to orders if possible, great physical
endurance, and a cool head. In many respects he thought Mervyn filled
these requirements, but a mistaken appraisement of his qualities by his
commanding officer would be an error of fatal results, and somehow
Captain Howard found on sifting his convictions that he had, albeit
for slight cause, lost confidence in Mervyn. To be sure, Mervyn had in
his formal report rectified the false impression under which he had
permitted the commandant to rest for a time, but Captain Howard was a
straightforward man himself and he could not easily recover from the
impression created by the captain-lieutenant’s duplicity in standing
by and receiving commendations for the acts of another man--the fact
of being in that other man’s presence made it a futile folly, which
implied a lack of logic. Oddly enough, logic was one of the essential
requisites on an expedition among the Indians. Such emergencies might
arise that the officer could only act on his own initiative, and Mervyn
seemed not capable of striking out the most effective course and
holding to it at all odds.
Captain Howard groaned under the weight of responsibility. He was
compelled to trust the lives of a score of his men to the wisdom or
unwisdom of his selection of an officer to command them. While Mervyn,
by virtue of his rank, had the first claim to the conduct of an
important matter requiring tact, discretion, mental poise, he was ruled
out of the possibilities. He was too self-conscious, too uncertain,
too slack in judgment, too obtuse to fine distinctions. Ensign Innis
also was out of the question. He was too young, too inexperienced, and
Ensign Lawrence was too young, not only in years, but in mind,--a mere
blundering boy. It would be suicidal to match his unthinking faculties
against the subtle wiles of the sages of the upper towns. Lieutenant
Jerrold then it must be,--but Jerrold was the most literal-minded
of men! He was absolutely devoid of imagination, of speculation, of
that capacity to see through the apparent fact to the lurking truth
beyond. He was a very efficient man in his place, but his place was
a subordinate station. He would do with thoroughness the obviously
necessary, but he would not be conscious of an emergency till it was
before his feet as a pitfall, or immediately in his path as an enemy.
He would take the regulation precautions, but he would not divine a
danger, nor detect duplicity, nor realize a subtlety which he did not
share. He was the predestined victim of ambush. He was a martinet on
the drill ground and a terror at inspection. He laid great stress on
pipe-clay and rotten-stone, and whatever the stress of the situation
the men of his immediate command always showed up preternaturally
smart. Captain Howard was no prophet, but he felt he could view with
the eye of accomplished fact the return of Jerrold in ten days with the
calm announcement that there were no British cannon in the Cherokee
country, for he had been given this solemn assurance by no less a
personage than Cunigacatgoah.
Captain Howard did not even consider Bolt for the enterprise; he was
a military machine, incapable of devising an expedient in emergency
or acting on his own initiative. Besides, his duties as fort-adjutant
were particularly pressing just now in view of the preparations for
the early evacuation of the post and they could not be delegated.
Therefore there remained only Raymond,--Captain Howard was in despair
as he thought of Raymond and his interpretation of his orders to
“persuade” the missionary to return. Impulsive, headstrong, eager,
quick, indefatigable, emotional, imaginative,--what room was there for
prudence in this fiery temperament! Still, he had shown a degree of
coolness at the encounter of the boat with the Tamotlee Indians, and
had given the soldiers an excellent example of imperturbability under
the stress of exciting circumstances. But this was his element,--the
contact of actual contention,--the shock of battle so to speak. How
would he restrain himself when outwitted,--how would he gather few
and feeble resources and make the best of them,--how might he see fit
to tamper with his instructions and obey or not as he liked,--or if a
right judgment found those orders based on fallacious premises, unknown
to the commandant, how should he have discretion to modify them and act
on his own initiative, or would he, like Bolt, persist in following
the letter if it destroyed the spirit of his instructions? Oh, it was
hard to be reduced to a choice of a madcap ensign, in this matter of
paramount importance? He could not, he would not, send Raymond--his
impetuosity was enough to bring the whole Cherokee country about their
ears.
He shook his head, scowling unwittingly, as he chanced to catch sight
of Raymond while crossing the parade, and still uncertain and morosely
cogitating, he took his way to the commandant’s office and disappeared
from vision.
On the space beyond the parade Raymond and Arabella were greatly
exercised in marking out a course for her archery practice. The promise
of a fair day had been joyously fulfilled. The breeze was fresh, but
bland and straight from the south; despite the leafless forests the sun
shone with a vernal brilliance; a flock of wild geese going northward
passed high over the fort, the cry, unfamiliar to Arabella, floating
down to her ears, and she stood as long as she could see them, her head
upturned, her hat fallen on the ground, her eyes following their flight
as the wedge-shaped battalion deployed through the densely blue sky:
there seemed even a swifter movement in the current of the river, and
through the great gate one could from the parade catch sight of a white
glister on the face of the waters where the ripples reflected the sun.
So soft was the air that the young lady wore no cloak. Her
close-fitting gown of hunter’s green cloth, opening over a vest and
petticoat of sage-tinted paduasoy, brocaded in darker shades of green,
was not out of keeping with the woodland suggestions of the bow which
she held in her hand and the quiver already slung over her shoulder,
its gorgeous polychromatic tints rendering her an object of mark in
the brilliant sunshine from far across the parade. But she paused in
her preparations to lament the lack of the uniform of the archery
club which she had left in the oak press of her room at home, and
Raymond listened as she described it, with her picture, thus arrayed,
as vivid in his mind as the actual sight of her standing there, her
golden hair glimmering in the sun, her white hands waving to and fro
as she illustrated the features of the uniform and recounted the
contentions of taste, the cabals and heart-burnings, the changes and
counter-changes which the club had shared before at length the triumph
of costume was devised, and made and worn before the acclaiming
plaudits of half the county.
“Faint green,” she said, “the very shade for a Diana,--”
“I like a darker green,--Diana wears a hunter’s green,” he interrupted.
“Why do you think that?” she asked, nonplussed, her satisfaction a
trifle wilted.
“I know it,” he said, a little consciously; and as she still stared
at him, he went on: “hunter’s green is the shade of the forest
verdure,--it is a tint selected not only for beauty but to deceive
the keen vision of game. It stands to reason that Diana should wear a
hunter’s green.”
She meditated on this view for a few moments in silence, and the eyes
of Lieutenant Jerrold, as he loitered in the door of the mess-hall,
noted their eager absorption as they stood in the grassy space between
the commandant’s quarters and the block-house in the bastion, in
which was situated the mess-hall. There were a few trees here, still
leafless, and a number of the evergreen shrubs of the region, either
spared for shade where they originally grew, or transplanted by some
earlier commandant, voicing as clearly as words a yearning homesickness
for a colonial or an English garden, and now attaining a considerable
height and a redundant spread of boughs. An English rose, now but
leafless brambles, clambered over the doorway of the commandant’s
quarters, and along a hedgerow of rhododendron, which reached the
proportions of a wind-break, protruded some imported bulbous plants
of a simple sort, whether crocus or hyacinth, one could hardly judge
from so slight a tip piercing the mould. The bare parade was quiet now;
earlier in the morning there had been roll-call and guard-mounting;
and Mervyn, released from duty as officer of the day, could also see
from where he sat in the mess-hall the interested attitudes of the two
as they paused in their preparations for target practice to enjoy the
pleasures of conversation.
“The benighted ninny!” Mrs. Annandale, commenting on Mervyn, said to
herself in pettish despair, watching the _tête-à-tête_ from the window
of the commandant’s parlor,--she had promised Arabella to witness her
proficiency from this coigne of vantage, for the outer air was too
brisk without the off-set of active exercise, “Why _doesn’t_ George
Mervyn join them?” For she had observed Mervyn as he had quitted the
orderly room, and marked his start of surprise and relaxed pace as his
eyes fell upon the two,--then his dogged affectation of indifference as
he briskly crossed to the block-house in the bastion.
“Hunter’s green is the wood-nymph’s wear forever,” Raymond declared,
eying Arabella as she stood in distinct relief against the darker
green of the rhododendron hedge, in the flickering sunshine and
shade under the branches of a balsam fir. “But I have no doubt,” he
continued, with a sudden courteous afterthought, “that the archery
uniform, though not designed with a strict view of sylvan utility, was
very smart in faint green.”
“Oh, it was,--it was,”--she acceded, with ready good-humor. “It was
relieved with white--”
“Oh, another tone of green, by all means,” he blurted out impulsively,
and now he had some ado to catch himself in this inadvertence--was he
dull enough, he asked himself, to openly worship in set phrase the gown
she now wore? “Was the relief a dead white,--like our pipe-clay gear?”
he critically demanded.
“No-o--what they call a white silver cloth, now-a-days, and with a
little cap of white silver cloth, with a tinsel half-moon.”
“Oh, a lady is so fair,--the caps ought to have been a dark green to
set off an exquisite fairness,--and a broad hat, a furry beaver hat,
would have been prettier in my eyes than a cap.”
Oh, fool! seeming much confused now, and just remembering that it is
her hat--her broad furry beaver hat--in your mind, lying there in the
sand, with its drooping feather and its long strings of wide sage-green
ribbon to tie under her delicate chin. No wonder you turn deeply red,
and begin to try the bow-line of a great unstrung Indian bow with all
your strength.
“But all ladies are not fair,” she protested. “That white silver cloth
cap was Eva Golightly’s selection to set off her black hair,--she wears
no powder,--that is, not on her hair!”
He laughed gayly at the imputation, and the roguish glance of her eyes
encountered in his a candid mutual enjoyment of the little fling.
“But it is a charming costume,” she went on, “and so convenient,--with
no hanging sleeves, nor lappets or frills to catch at the bow and arrow
as one shoots,--everything laid on in plain bands,--I wish I had not
left it at home, but of course I did not dream I should have any such
lovely chance to shoot here.”
“And why not, pray?--the land of the bow and arrow!”
“How could I imagine I should be furnished with these adorable
toys--just the proper weight and size. I could not handle a real bow
like yours, for instance. It is a weapon in truth!”
She suddenly held out her bow to exchange for experiment, and lifting
the long, straight, heavy weapon, she sought to bend it from the
perpendicular to string it. The stout wood resisted her force, and she
paused to admire its smooth grain, which had a sheen like satin. He did
not think its history worth telling,--a grewsome recollection for so
fair a day! He had taken it from a Cherokee warrior whom he had slain
during the late war in a hand-to-hand conflict--a desperate encounter,
for the Indian had held him half doubled by a clutch on his powdered
and perfumed hair, and the scalp-knife had grazed his forehead before
he could make shift to fire his pistol, twice flashing in the pan, into
his captor’s heart. He had no time to reload, and snatching up the bow
of his adversary he had fitted and shot an arrow with fatal effect at a
tribesman who was coming up to his comrade’s assistance; then Raymond
made good his retreat, carrying the bow as a trophy.
It was indeed a weapon. “Terrible was the clanging of the silver bow”
as he strung it and then drew back the cord to try it, and then let
it fly again. Arabella exclaimed with a shrilly sweet delight at the
unexpected resonance of the taut bow-line. He fitted an arrow and
drew back, sighting carefully at the target. This was a board painted
white, with several dark circles about a bull’s-eye, affixed against
a tree, beyond which was the blank interior slope of the rampart, and
above, the red clay parapet surmounted by the long line of the stakes
of the tall stockade. Captain Howard, himself, had selected the spot.
In common with all regulars he believed--and fire cannot scorch this
faith out of them--that only the trained soldier can fight, or shoot,
or acquire any accuracy of aim. He had therefore placed the flower of
the archery club where her quartz-tipped arrows, if wide of the mark,
could only pierce the heavy clay embankment and endanger the life and
welfare of neither man nor beast. Suddenly Raymond let fly the shaft,
testing the wind. It had fallen now to the merest zephyr, and did not
swerve the arrow a hair’s breadth from the mark. It struck fair and
full in the bull’s-eye, for these frontier officers often were called
upon to defend their lives with their own hands, and sought skill
in marksmanship, a steady hand, a trained eye, and a cool head as
zealously as did the rank and file.
The youthful Diana, her draperies flying in the motion as she sped
through shadow and sheen, gained the target as quickly as he. As he
recovered his arrow he was laughing with flattered pleasure noting
her eagerness to assure herself of the accuracy of his aim, while she
uttered little exclamations of wonder and delight at his efficiency.
“Wouldn’t you make them stare in Kent?” she cried breathlessly, as the
two raced together swiftly to the starting-point.
Then she selected an arrow from her gorgeous little quiver, hanging
over her shoulder, and fitted the shaft to the bow. It was the
prettiest attitude imaginable as she stood in the mingled shadow and
sheen, her golden hair glimmering in the sun, and drawing the cord took
careful aim. Her arrow sprang smartly from the string, sped through
the air, and entered one of the circles so close to the centre as to
justify Raymond’s joyous cry of congratulation, echoing through the
parade.
“Gad! I think I’ll see this thing through!” Jerrold exclaimed, as he
still stood in the mess-room door. He turned to the wall, and took
down a bow that had been used there for ornament rather than a weapon.
As he approached across the parade he noticed that the face of every
passer-by was turned with smiling eyes toward the spirited and handsome
young couple, and when he came up and was greeted genially by Raymond,
and with a gracious word of welcome by the lady, he thought sagely that
the best archer on the ground was invisible, and that the prettiest
shots were not registered on the target.
The absence of Mervyn seemed the more significant now, since the other
young officers not on duty were occupied in the gallant endeavor to
make the archery practice of the young lady more interesting and
exciting by competition. As he dully sulked in the deserted mess-hall,
he had the cold comfort of perceiving that his presence was by no
means essential to the young lady’s enjoyment of the occasion. Her
musical, ringing laughter, now much heartier than either Mrs. Annandale
or Mervyn thought becoming or consonant with the simpering ideals of
the times, was blended with the very definite merriment of the young
officers, who by no means had been taught to “laugh by note.” Jerrold’s
entrance to the pastime had added greatly to its gayety. He was a fair
shot with fire-arms, but he entertained, of course, great contempt for
the bow and arrow as a weapon. He had no sort of appreciation of its
grace in usage nor interest in the romantic details of its archaic
history, either in civilized countries of eld or in this new and savage
world. In his literal mind the mighty bow-men of whatever sort were a
set of inefficient varlets, whom a pinch of gun-powder might justly
put to rout. Hence he scarcely knew how to take hold of the weapon.
He had not even taxed his observation with its methods, although he
had often seen Indian hunters use it in shooting at game, and more
than once, since the scarcity of powder among the Cherokees, a forlorn
destitute wight seek to defend his life with its dubious and precarious
aid. Therefore there was much glee on the part of the two experts when
Jerrold claimed his turn; after several efforts he awkwardly contrived
to draw the bow and sent an arrow feebly fluttering through the air to
fall to the ground a few paces distant. Arabella clapped her hands like
a child as she burst into melodious peals of laughter, and Raymond’s
amusement at this travesty of archery was hardly less spontaneous.
Though vastly superior, they showed themselves not grudging of their
proficiency; they undertook to instruct Jerrold in correct methods,
one standing on either side of him and both talking at once. Suddenly
Raymond called out sharply to Arabella, cautioning her lest she pass
between the archer and the target. “For heaven’s sake,--for mercy’s
sake,” he adjured her solemnly, “pray be careful!”
She flushed deeply at the tone; it thrilled in her heart; the next
moment her heart was aching with the realization that it was of no
special significance. Any one might caution another with a reckless
exposure to danger.
“I fancy the safest place is between the archer and the target when Mr.
Jerrold shoots,” she said laughing.
Then again ensued the farce of Jerrold’s efforts, the faltering shaft
falling far short of the mark,--with such wide divergence, indeed,
even from the line of aim, that Captain Howard’s disposition of the
target in so remote a spot was amply justified. As once more the joyous
laughter rang forth in which Jerrold, himself, readily bore a sonorous
part, Mervyn suddenly joined the group. He had gained nothing by his
absence, and indeed he could no longer nurse his anger in secret to
keep it warm.
“What is all this?” he asked curtly, glancing about him with an air of
disparagement.
“Can’t you see?” returned Jerrold. “It is archery practice.”
“Will you shoot?” Raymond suggested, civilly offering him the bow which
he had used himself.
Mervyn hesitated. He thought himself a fair bowman, but he fancied from
the state of the target and what he had heard of the acclaim of success
that Raymond had made some very close hits. He feared lest he might
come off a poor second. He was not willing to be at a disadvantage in
Arabella’s presence even in so small a matter. He resented, too, the
sight of her use of Raymond’s gift,--the beautiful bow in her hand,
the decorated quiver, with its crystal-tipped arrows, hanging from its
embroidered strap over her dainty shoulder. He could not refrain from a
word that might serve to disparage them.
“No,” he refused, “I don’t care for archery. It is a childish pastime.”
“I am beholden to you, sir!” exclaimed Arabella, exceedingly stiffly.
She really was so expert as to render her proficiency almost an
accomplishment, and she was of a spirit to resent the contemptuous
disparagement of a pastime which she so ardently affected.
“I mean, of course, for men and soldiers,” Mervyn qualified, with a
deep flush, for her tone had brought him suddenly to book.
“The bow-men of Old England?” she said, with her chin in the air.
“They had no better weapons,” he reminded her, with an air of
instruction. “And their victories were not child’s play. It was the
best they could do.”
“And this is the best that I can do!” she said, fitting an arrow to the
bow and throwing herself into that attitude of incomparable grace.
Whether it was an accident, whether she had made an extraordinary
effort, whether the discord, the nettled displeasure, the roused
pride, served to steady her nerves, as self-assertion sometimes will
do, the arrow, springing from the string, cleft the air with a musical
sibilance that was like a measure of song, and flying straight to the
mark struck the bull’s-eye fairly and stuck there, rendering the feat
absolutely impossible of disallowance.
Raymond’s delight knew no bounds. He sympathized so in her pleasure.
They looked at each other with wide, brilliant eyes full of mutual
joy, and ran together to the target to make sure of what was already
assured. As they came back both were laughing excitedly, and Raymond
was loudly talking. “Let us leave it there to show to Captain Howard.
He will never believe it else. Let not another arrow be shot till then,
lest somebody strike the target and the jar bring this arrow down.”
“Except Mr. Jerrold!” Arabella stipulated, with a gush of laughter.
“There is no danger of his hitting the target, far or near.”
“Yes,--yes,--” exclaimed Raymond, adopting the suggestion. “Here,
Jerrold, value your special privileges! You only may draw the bow.”
Jerrold braced himself to the endeavor, good-naturedly adopting the
advice of each in turn as they took up their station, one on either
side.
“Slip your left hand lower!” Raymond urged.
“Oh, you _must_ hold the arrow steady!” Arabella admonished him.
“Now aim,--aim,--man!” Raymond prompted.
“Why don’t you take sight, Mr. Jerrold?” Arabella queried.
Mervyn, looking on disaffectedly as all were so merrily busy, noticed
that two or three soldiers who passed near enough to see down the
little grassy glade among the trees sensibly slackened their pace in
their interest in the commotion, and, indeed, the whole scene was
visible to the sentries at the gate, the warder in the tower, and to a
certain extent from the galleries of the barracks.
“Don’t you think it is injudicious, Jerrold,” he remarked, with distant
displeasure, “to make yourself ridiculous in the eyes of the men of
your command?”
“Oh, no!” said Jerrold, lightly. “They know it is capital punishment
to ridicule me. Make your mind easy.”
“It must lessen your influence!” Mervyn persisted. He hardly knew
what he wanted in this argument. He did not care a fig for Jerrold’s
influence over the men. He only desired some subterfuge to break up the
merry-making in which he did not choose to share.
Jerrold did not even answer. Arabella on one side was offering a dozen
suggestions tending to improve his aim, and Raymond was by precept and
example endeavoring to get him into the right posture.
“Now,--hold steady for a minute before you shoot,” said Raymond.
“If you only could count ten in that position without moving,”
suggested Arabella.
“Or better still, repeat the Cherokee invocation for good aim,” Raymond
proposed. “Might improve your luck.” And he continued sonorously:
“_Usinuli yu Selagwutsi Gigagei getsu neliga tsudandag gihi ayeliyu,
usinuliyu. Yu!_” (Instantly may the Great Red magic arrow strike you in
the very centre of your soul.)
“Oh, repeat it! repeat it!” cried Arabella. “Try it, and see if it will
really mend your aim! What strange, strange words!”
Jerrold was haltingly repeating this after Raymond when Captain Howard
came out of his office, and seeing the group took his way toward it.
Raymond’s back being toward him, he did not perceive the commandant’s
approach and continued the invocation, delivering it _ore rotundo_ in
imitation of the sonorous elocution of the Indians.
It sounded very clever to Captain Howard, who always declared he envied
the facility with which the young officers picked up the colloquial
use of the Indian languages. He took no trouble himself to that end,
however. In his adoption of the adage with reference to the difficulty
of teaching an old dog new tricks, he did not adequately consider
the disinclination of the dog to the acquisition of fresh lore. The
younger men were more plastic to new impressions; they exerted a keener
observation; and felt a fresher interest, and few there were who had
not some familiarity with the tongue and traditions of the tribe of
Indians about the fort, and those among whom their extensive campaigns
had taken them.
“What does all that mean?” Captain Howard asked curtly.
Raymond translated, and explained Jerrold’s predicament and his need
of luck in default of skill. Then he turned with animation toward the
target, to celebrate the famous hit of Miss Howard’s arrow in the
bull’s-eye while she stood flushing and smiling and prettily conscious
beside him. But Captain Howard laid a constraining hand on his arm and
looking at him with earnest eyes, demanded, “Where did you get all that
Cherokee stuff?”
“Oh, in the campaigns in the Cherokee country,” Raymond answered, “I
picked up a deal of their lingo.” For Raymond had served both in
Montgomery’s campaign and Grant’s subsequent forays through this region
two years ago, and his active mind had amassed much primitive lore,
which, however, he had never expected to use in any valuable sort.
“Were you ever in Choté, Old Town?” queried the captain.
“I was there on one occasion, sir” said Raymond now surprised and
expectant.
“Then go there again,--take twenty picked men,--your own choice,--and
set out to-morrow at daybreak. Report for final orders this evening at
retreat.”
Arabella, dismayed and startled, felt her heart sink. She turned
pale and tremulous; she did not know if a cloud passed over the
sun, but for her the light of the day was quenched. She could not
understand Raymond. His face was transfigured with a glow of delight.
She could not imagine the zest of such an employ to a young officer,
brave, ardent, eager to show his mettle, ambitious of any occasion
of distinction. This was his first opportunity. A distant march,--a
separate command of experienced soldiers,--even if only twenty! The
dignity of the prospect set Raymond all a-quiver. What cared he for the
jungles of the wild mountains, the distance, the toils, the danger!
As to the Indians,--it behooved the nations to look to their safety
when he was on the march with twenty men at his back! His cheek was
scarlet; his eyes flashed fire; he responded with a staid decorum
of acquiescence, but it was obvious that in his enthusiasm for the
opportunity he could have fallen at the feet of the commandant and
kissed his hands in gratitude.