You want to be the man who kept the rest
from going to the front--eh?"
"No, sirr, I do not."
"All right, then. Next Saturday night say to yourself: 'Another pint,
and I keep the Battalion back!' If you do that, you'll come back to
barracks sober, like a decent chap. That'll do. Don't salute with your
cap off. Next man, Sergeant-Major!"
"Good boy, that," remarks the Captain to Bobby Little, as the contrite
Robb is removed. "Keen as mustard. But his high-water mark for beer is
somewhere in his boots. All right, now I've scared him."
"Last prisoner, sirr," announces the Sergeant-Major.
"Glad to hear it. H'm! Private M'Queen again!"
Private M'Queen is an unpleasant-looking creature, with a drooping red
moustache and a cheese-coloured complexion. His misdeeds are recited.
Having been punished for misconduct early in the week, he has piled
Pelion on Ossa by appearing fighting drunk at defaulters' parade.
From all accounts he has livened up that usually decorous assemblage
considerably.
After the corroborative evidence, the Captain asks his usual question
of the prisoner--
"Anything to say?"
"No," growls Private M'Queen.
The Captain takes up the prisoner's conduct-sheet, reads it through,
and folds it up deliberately.
"I am going to ask the Commanding Officer to discharge you," he says;
and there is nothing homely or paternal in his speech now.
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