THE PROWLER IN QUARTERS
At eleven o'clock the next morning Bert Dodge stepped up to
another cadet known as the "sick-marcher." Together they went to
the hospital where Dodge reported to the medical officer in charge.
"What's the trouble, Mr. Dodge?" asked the surgeon, reaching for
the plebe's pulse.
"Chills, sir, mumbled the cadet.
"Chills? Your pulse is a bit rapid, but not suspiciously so. Let me
place this thermometer in your mouth."
After two minutes Captain Goodwin removed the thermometer
and held it up.
"Normal," he observed, a bit puzzled. "Dead-beating," as it is
called, or trying to get into the hospital when there is no need, is
not unknown to the surgeons at the Military Academy. But when
done, it is usually tried before a boy has been there a year. "How
long have you felt this way?"
"For about twenty-four hours, sir."
"Perhaps I'd better mark you 'quarters' for twenty-four hours to
come," said the surgeon, eyeing Dodge closely.
Dodge squirmed. This was what he did not want. Being ordered to
quarters would keep him in his room.
"I've been fighting this off in my room, sir," replied Dodge
haltingly. "I don't feel well, and I thought that a day or two here,
resting in bed under a doctor's eye, might set me up."
"Very well, Mr. Dodge. I don't think anything serious has assailed
you, but we'll keep you under observation for a day or two."
Captain Goodwin completed the record of the case, then pressed a
button. A sergeant of the hospital corps entered.
"Steward, Mr. Dodge is to be put to bed. Full hospital diet and rest.
Further instructions will be given to you later."
"Very good, sir."
Dodge followed the sergeant to a bathroom, there to undress and
bathe. When he had finished he was handed some pajamas.
"Where is my regular clothing?" asked Dodge of the private who
gave him the pajamas.
"Sergeant Eberlee locked them up in a locker, sir, until you're
discharged."
Bert Dodge, in a furious temper, followed the private to the bed
assigned to him. His clothing locked up! That clothing had figured
largely in his plan in coming to the hospital.
"Now I have played the fool!" thought the cadet. "I'd planned to get
out on the sly tonight, while in here officially. Now I can't get out
except in pajamas in which I'd be spotted before I'd gone ten feet!
Hang the fool regulations of this hospital!"
All day Dodge lay fuming. Lieutenant Doctor Herman visited him
twice, still unwilling to say nothing was wrong. For one thing,
Bert was so angry that he could not eat, and that in itself is unusual
in a healthy cadet who lives a very strenuous life. Anger also gave
him a flushed face and an exceptional look about the eyes. Yet,
there was nothing apparent to make a physician believe there was
anything serious the matter.
Bert had the ward to himself, being the only patient in the
building. It was eight o'clock when a man in the uniform of the
hospital corps came in to turn the lights low.
"Benton!" exclaimed Dodge. "What brings you here?"
"Is that you, Mr. Dodge?" asked Private Benton, approaching Bert's
bed. "I'm sorry to see you sick, sir."
"I'm not sick, Benton. But, again, what are you doing here?" Benton
was an enlisted man who, for pay, had been accustomed to serving
Dodge more or less surreptitiously.
"My enlistment ran out last week, sir. So I quit the cavalry to try a
three-year term in the hospital corps."
Here was Cadet Dodge's opportunity! He bribed Benton to bring
him his clothes and to promise silence.
"It would be time in a military prison for me if I told, sir; so you
can be sure I'll keep still," was Benton's remark as he let the cadet
out of a back door.
As he went softly in through the east sally port, Dodge noted with
joy that almost nobody was around.
"I can get by without detection," he chuckled. He did get just
inside the doorway of the subdivision in which Cadets Prescott and
Holmes dwelt before he attracted attention. There he passed two
yearlings.
"Is that you, Mr. Dodge?" rather sharply demanded one of these
yearlings.
"No, sir," Dodge replied in a strained voice and sped on upstairs.
"Queer," muttered one of the yearlings. "I was almost positive that
was Mr. Dodge."
Dodge was by this time in Dick Prescott's darkened room. He stole
over to the fireplace where he worked quickly.
"I've fixed your career here, Dick Prescott!" gloated the
treacherous youth.