“It’s Patrick McGillicuddy that had a hand in it, mum,” said Mrs. McGillicuddy wrathfully.  “He’s been takin’ rises out of the naygur, as he calls Kettle, for twenty years, and he seen Sergeant Gully and Sergeant Halligan draggin’ poor Kettle along to the riding hall.  I seen Kettle when he run out, and McGillicuddy was a standin’ off, a-laffin’ fit to kill himself, and I know that Gully and Halligan has been jokin’ Kettle and makin’ him believe he has enlisted in the aviation corps and will have to go flyin’, and Kettle’s scared stiff.”

“Poor Kettle,” said Mrs. Fortescue softly, clasping her pearls about her white throat.  “It’s been a sad day to all of us, except the Colonel.  Of course, I never attempt to criticise Colonel Fortescue’s professional conduct, but I do feel lost without Kettle.”

“Well, mum,” replied Mrs. McGillicuddy, “I haven’t been a sergeant’s wife for twenty years without findin’ out that nobody can’t say a word about the orficers, but I do think, mum, as three days in the guardhouse for poor Kettle, who was bamboozled by Tim Gully and Mike Halligan, is one of the cruelest things a commandin’ orficer ever done.  Not that I’m a-criticisin’ the Colonel, mum—­I wouldn’t do such a thing for the world.”

“Nor would I,” replied Mrs. Fortescue meekly, and fully conscious of the Colonel’s presence in the next room, shaving himself savagely, “but three days for such a little thing does seem hard.”

Colonel Fortescue ground his teeth and gave himself such a jab with his razor that the blood came.

This subtle persecution of the Colonel went on, with variations, for three whole days.

On the Friday when Kettle’s time was up he was released and his return was hailed with open delight by his partisans, Mrs. Fortescue, Mrs. McGillicuddy and the After-Clap, and with secret relief by the Colonel, Anita and Sergeant McGillicuddy.

Kettle, on reporting to the Colonel, said solemnly, “Kun’l, I ain’t never goin’ ter try an’ enlist no mo’, so help me Gord A’mighty.  An’ I ain’t a’goin’ to pay no more ’tention to the chaplain’s sermons, ’cause ’twuz that there chaplain as fust got me in this here mess, cuss him!”

This last was under Kettle’s breath, and the Colonel pretended not to hear.

CHAPTER VII

THE PLEADING EYES OF WOMEN

It was May before the winter loosened its grasp on Fort Blizzard.  Once more, the fort was in touch with the outside world for a few months.  The mails came regularly and there were two trains a day at the station, ten miles away.  In May Anita had a birthday—­her eighteenth.

“You can’t call me a child any longer, daddy,” she said to Colonel Fortescue, on the May morning when she was showered with birthday gifts.  Nevertheless, Colonel Fortescue continued to call her a child, but a glance at her reading showed that Anita was very much grown up.  She still read piles of books and pamphlets concerning the Philippines and knew all about the stinging and creeping and crawling things that made life hideous in the jungles, the horrors of fever, the merciless heat, and the treacherous Moros who stabbed the sleeping soldiers by night.  No word had come from Broussard across the still and sluggish Pacific.