His walk, unplanned as it was, drew him towards the center of the city.
He mechanically avoided the streets that were crowded, and, like a bit
of flotsam on the ocean's surface, was guided and buffeted until,
turning down a quiet side-street, he emerged upon the corner of a huge
stone building. He glanced up, to realize that it was the Armories and
was about to change his course when a recruiting sergeant, noticing his
hesitation, stepped up to him.
"Beg pardon," he said, "but was you lookin' to sign up?"
"Sign up?" Montague repeated the words automatically.
"Sure--sign up with the Brindle's Battalion."
"The Brindle's Battalion?"
"Come off that parrot stuff," growled Sergeant Saunders.
Montague shook himself together. "I beg your pardon," he said stiffly.
The sergeant shuffled uneasily. "Say, don't be so dashed polite," he
said, not ill-naturedly. "I'm here to get recruits. We're a tough
bunch; we're a rough bunch; but we're men. Our boys ain't strong on
polish or eddication, and they're no boozeless, non-smoking crowd; but
they're straight, and they're game, and they're men."
"They're men," repeated Montague, dazed by a dizziness that seemed to
wrap himself and the sergeant in an enveloping mist.
"That's what I said," reiterated Sergeant Saunders, mentally noting
that he would make Montague drop his sing-song if he ever got the
opportunity. "What do you say, old scout?"
Montague glanced up. "Will you take me?" he said.
"Will we take you?" A broad, brown hand grasped Montague's arm, and he
found himself being led into a room in the Armories, where he
discovered that his full name was Dennis Oliver Montague, that he was
twenty-eight years of age, that he was an Anglican, and that his Uncle
Charles was his next of kin. He further found that he was the property
of His Majesty King George the Fifth for the duration of the war and
six months after. "So 'elp me; and shove 'im in to the medico.--Glad
you signed up, my lad; you'll never regret it. We've got a man's job
for you, and--close that bleeding door, Nokes.--All right.--_Next!_"
With whirlwind rapidity Dennis stripped for the doctor, who pronounced
him an excellent example of cannon-fodder; and, still dazed, he put on
his clothes and emerged into the open air, a red band about his arm
proclaiming to the world that he was now Private D. O. Montague, of the
Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F. He gasped, shrugged his shoulders, then
went home.