AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND AT COURT
During the remainder of the night none of the four Khaki Boys slept
much. The very nature of Ignace's fragmentary information was calculated
to keep his bunkies awake for a while. Ignace himself tossed restlessly
about on his cot. Though his conscience did not trouble him, his nose
pained him.
Dropping into fitful slumber just as dawn was graying in the east, he
was cautiously awakened a little before first call by Roger, who was
always first of the four to open his eyes in the morning.
"Sorry to do it, old man," apologized Roger in a whisper, "but we mayn't
have another chance to talk. Get dressed as quietly as you can. I'm
going to wake up Jimmy and Bob."
Bob and Jimmy next interviewed, the quartette dressed with noiseless
speed. Directly after first call they gathered about Ignace, who in an
undertone regaled them with an account of the fight.
"Now listen to me, Iggy," counseled Bob in low, guarded tones. "When you
get on the carpet before the K. O. you tell him just what you told us
and stick to it. Don't you let Bixton put it over you. Naturally he'll
try it. It'll be your word against his."
"Too bad somebody else didn't see him at his dirty work," muttered
Jimmy. "Wish we hadn't gone off to Tremont. Then this wouldn't have
happened."
"What you should have done, Ignace, was just to hold onto him and raise
an alarm." Roger's face indicated troubled sympathy.
"So think I," protested Ignace. "Get up quick an' try. Him no think I am
the wake. Jus' I catch, him yell; hit me the nose. Then am I the mad.
Hit too; ver' strong poonch. So is it the fight."
"So is it," commented Bob grimly. "You're in for it, Iggy. All you can
do is to speak your little piece, and take your medicine like a lamb.
You're in the Army now. Oh, boy!" The rueful intonation of this last
brought the flicker of a smile to three very gloomy faces.
"Break away!" warned Jimmy _sotto-voce_, as he sighted Sergeant Dexter
bearing down upon them.
As Roger had feared, the sergeant was on the trail of the belligerents,
neither of whom were to be allowed to mingle with their comrades,
pending the action of the commanding officer, to whom he had already
sent a written report of the disturbance.
Following one o'clock Assembly that day, came the dread summons that saw
both Ignace and Bixton dropped out of ranks and marched off to
headquarters under guard, there to give an account of themselves to that
awe-inspiring person, the K. O., which is Army vernacular for the
commanding officer. It was a highly uncomfortable moment for both when
they were brought into the presence of a most austere-faced commandant,
whose penetrating blue eyes pierced them through and through, as they
came to attention before his desk.
With him was Sergeant Dexter, who eyed the two with an expression of
profound disgust. The sergeant was feeling decidedly sore over the whole
affair. It put him in an unpleasant light. Having stared the culprits
fairly out of countenance, Major Stearns proceeded, with due
deliberation, to pick up the report from his desk, reading it aloud in a
dry, hard tone that fully indicated his great displeasure.
"This is a full report of what occurred last night?" he asked, turning
to Sergeant Dexter.
"It is, sir," replied the sergeant, saluting.
"What's your name? What have you to say for yourself?" he next rapped
out severely, addressing Bixton. The man's left eye showed all too
plainly the result of that scrimmage in the dark.
"Bixton, sir. What happened last night was not my fault, sir," returned
Bixton, almost defiantly. "A little after eleven o'clock I woke up and
found I was thirsty. I left my cot to get a drink of water. I crossed
the room as quiet as I could, and started down the squad room. I
stumbled a little in the dark and stopped for a minute. Next thing I
knew a man had jumped on me and was trying to hit me. It surprised me so
I yelled right out. He kept on hitting me, so I had to defend myself
and----"
"That is no the trut'," came the angry contradiction. Ignace glared
righteous indignation at his traducer. "Never I----"
"Silence!" thundered the K. O. "Don't you dare speak until you're told
to talk!"
"'Scuse," muttered Ignace, too utterly abashed by the rebuke to be
soldier-like.
"You state," the Major resumed his inquiry, "that this man here attacked
you last night in the dark without cause?"
"Yes, sir."
"Humph! Have you ever before had any trouble with him?"
"Once before, sir." A baleful gleam of triumph shot into the man's pale
eyes.
"When and where? Tell me about it."
"One day quite a while ago he was talking loud in barracks when I was
trying to rest. I asked him to stop it, and he wouldn't pay any
attention. Then I asked him again to stop making so much noise, and he
jumped on me just the same as he did last night. He got me down and
would have half-killed me if one of the fellows he runs with hadn't come
in and pulled him off. As soon as I knew last night who was fighting me
I wasn't surprised any more. I knew he'd been laying for me and so----"
"That will do." The major cut him off sharply.
Fixing a severe glance on Sergeant Dexter he asked, "Why didn't you make
a report of this first fight between these two men?"
"I knew nothing about it," was the chagrined answer. "I was certainly
_not_ in the barrack when it occurred."
"Humph!" came the dry repetition. "You seem to be hunting for trouble,
my man," was the commanding officer's grim opinion, as he looked poor
Ignace sternly over. "If you've anything to say, I'll hear it." The tone
indicated that more than enough had already been said. "What's your
name? Speak up."
Ignace drew a deep, sighing breath. Raising his head with a proud little
air, which he had unconsciously borrowed from Jimmy, he said, with slow
dignity: "I am one a Pole, Ignace Pulinski, sir. I am no the liar, sir.
Now say I the trut' all. You no believe, I can no help." Quite
unemotionally, and with frequent groping for a word that eluded him,
Ignace proceeded in his broken speech to give a detailed account of
Bixton's repeated churlish conduct toward himself since he had first
encountered him in Company E's barrack. Neither did the K. O. interrupt
him, but allowed him to go on talking, his keen eyes never leaving the
Polish boy's stolid face.
"Yeserday my three Brothar get the pass," pursued Ignace doggedly. "Then
I all 'lone. Bob say, 'you stay wake we come back.' I say, 'So will I.'
Taps him come, I ver' sleepy, but no go sleep. So wait I an' watch.
After while think now is mid the night. My Brothar no yet come. I look
to the stair, then, know I no why, look round. I see this man--so."
Ignace leaned forward to illustrate. "He have the hand reach out the
rack Jimmy, my ver' bes' Brothar. I think he go steal something. Once we
write the lettar. Leave on the shelf Jimmy. In morning no lettar. So
las' night think him mebbe t'ief. I think catch, keep till sergeant
come. Then him yell an' hit me the nose. So am I the mad. Hit, too; ver'
strong poonch. So is it the fight," ended Ignace placidly, using the
precise words in which he had recounted the fray to his bunkies.
"That's a big lie from beginning to end! He's trying to save his own
face." This time it was Bixton who forgot himself. His face aflame, he
turned menacingly upon his accuser. "You dirty, foreign trash----"
"Hold your tongue! Such language is unbecoming enough in itself, let
alone in the presence of your commanding officer." The probing eyes of
the commandant grew steely, his jaws came together with a snap on the
last word. "The stories of you two men don't agree in the least, except
on one point," he continued harshly. "You are both guilty of brawling
and thus disgracing the Service. Sergeant----" Still standing at rigid
attention, the non-com. tried to look even more attentive. "Bring the
man you say knows something of this affair from the other room."
Smartly saluting, the sergeant wheeled and stepped to the door of an
inner room. Flinging it open he disappeared, to return almost instantly
with a soldier, whose dark, rugged face was set in purposeful lines.
"This is the man, sir," reported the sergeant.
Momentary consternation showed itself in Bixton's face as he viewed the
unexpected witness; then a sneer played about his lips. Ignace, however,
stared at the newcomer in blank, absolute wonder. The sergeant's report,
read out by the K. O., had contained nothing about this third party,
who, nevertheless, it seemed, had something to say about last night's
disturbance. Now the Pole listened with strained attention as Private
Schnitzel, the man whose acquaintance he had made only yesterday, made
prompt replies to the major's preliminary questions.
"Tell me what you saw last night," commanded the K. O.
"I was awake and saw Bixton leave his cot last night, sir. He crossed
the room and stopped, as well as I could see in the dim light, in front
of the vacant cots that belong to the men that were away. I saw him
reach out his hand. Then I heard him yell and knew someone had caught
hold of him. I knew it must be Pulinski who had grabbed him, because he
must have thought just as I did that Bixton was up to something
crooked."
"Never mind what you thought," frowned the major. "Is that all you saw?
You are holding nothing back?"
"That is all I saw, sir. I have told you everything I knew about _last
night_, sir, except that I saw the fight and all that happened afterward
when the sergeant came."
"What do you know concerning the trouble between these two men previous
to this disgraceful affair?" The K. O. had caught the slight stress laid
on Schnitzel's words, "last night." "Were you in the squad room when the
first brawl between them took place?"
"Yes, sir."
"Give me an impartial account of it."
Schnitzel complied with a terse recital of the occurrence, which in
every detail corroborated the statements which Ignace had made.
"Are you ready to take solemn oath, if necessary, that what you have
just stated is absolutely true in every respect?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very good. That will be all for the present. You may go."
Saluting, Schnitzel wheeled and walked briskly from the room.
An oppressive silence fell as the sound of his retreating footfalls died
out, during which the K. O. coldly scrutinized the pair before him. When
at last he spoke, he addressed himself to Bixton.
"According to the testimony of two men, you were behaving in a
suspicious manner when Pulinski attacked you. If you were on your way to
get a drink of water, why did you stop to prowl about another man's
cot?"
"I didn't stop on purpose, sir," denied Bixton. "I stumbled and nearly
fell. In the dark it might have looked different to those two men,
though."
"I'd advise you to carry yourself so straight hereafter that what you do
won't 'look different' to any man in your barrack," was the sarcastic
retort. "Mind your own business, and keep to your own side of the squad
room.
"As for you," he stared hard at Ignace, "keep your too-ready fists to
yourself. A rowdy who can't control himself isn't fit to be a soldier.
Loss of self-control in war time has put more than one man against a
blank wall, facing a firing squad. If you see a man acting in what you
think is a suspicious manner, report him to your sergeant. Don't fly at
him like a savage and start to pummel him. Leave discipline to your
officers. That's what they're here for.
"You two men are both guilty of disgraceful and disorderly conduct. If
you're ever brought on the carpet again for fighting or misbehavior in
barracks it will go hard with you. You will be confined to your company
street for thirty days, without privileges and with extra fatigue. If
that doesn't teach you soldierly behavior, we have stronger methods of
dealing with such ruffians as you."
Having delivered himself of a few further biting remarks relative to his
highly uncomplimentary opinion of both men, the K. O. ordered them back
to barracks, instructing the sergeant to keep a close watch on them, and
see that his orders regarding them went into instant effect.
To Ignace it seemed unbelievable that he should be returning to
barracks. He had fully expected to land in the guard-house for at least
twenty days. He was divided between humiliation at the rebuke he had
just received, and dazed happiness at the thought of again being with
his Brothers. He was also deeply grateful to Schnitzel, whom he fully
realized had tried to befriend him.
Though the commanding officer had reprimanded both himself and Bixton
with impartial severity, Ignace could not know that of the two he had
made a far better impression on the "ver' cross major." Behind Major
Stearns' impassive features had lurked a certain sympathy for the man
who had been too hasty with his fists in the protection of his friend's
property. The K. O. was of the private opinion that whereas Ignace had
told the truth, Bixton had lied. A keen student of human nature, he had
arrived at a fairly correct estimate of the latter. The testimony
against him had been too vague, however, on which to hold him for any
charge other than that of disorderly conduct. He had, accordingly, been
obliged to consider the two combatants as equally guilty. He was
strongly of the belief, however, that Bixton would bear watching, and
made mental note that he would instruct Sergeant Dexter to keep a
special lookout in that direction.
Bixton's face was not good to see as he returned to barracks. He was
consumed with a black and unreasoning rage against the world in general.
Most of all he hated Schnitzel. Schnitzel had tried to "queer" him.
Well, he had failed. Now he, Bixton, would never rest until he "got
even" with the "nosey tattle-tale." He would "queer" Schnitzel no
matter how long it took him. When he was through, Schnitzel would find
himself in for something worse than a "bawling-out" from the K. O.,
extra fatigue and thirty days' loss of liberty and privileges.