Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

112 bill against him for twenty-five cents for repairing his breeches at Shenannigan Field, Texas. Now here is his service record, and it shows a deduction of a quarter made there in July for fixing his breeches, and he says that’s the only time he ever had it done, but they’ve been holding up his pay for three months.” “Holding up his pay, have they?” said Tommy angrily. “Sent the letter back three times? We'll see about that. I'll take it up to the adjutant myself.” He entered the adjutant’s office and spoke loudly: “Say, what’s all this, about Corporal Letar’s pants? MHere’s the letter all O. K.—just as his service record shows. ‘Twenty-five cents was deducted from Corporal Letar’s pay in July at Shenan- nigan Field, Texas, for repairing his pants.’ ” “Ah, that’s what’s wrong,” replied the adjutant smoothly. “Where’s your gram- mar? Haven’t you ever been to school? What you should say is: “Twenty-five cents were deducted from Corporal Letar’s pay at Shenannigan Field, Texas—’ ” “What’s this?” burst an angry roar from an inner office, as Major Krause rushed out. ‘“‘What’s all this about pants? Who’s this talking about pants? Don’t you know there’s no such thing in the United States Army as pants? Who are you, young man?” Tommy stood speechless at the out- burst. Why, oh why, hadn’t he kept on following Long John’s advice about keep- ing out of sight? “This is Lieutenant Lang, sir,” said the adjutant silkily, “the commanding officer of the 946th Aero Squadron on this Post. We were discussing a very serious error in one of his reports.” “Oh, it is, is it?” said Major Krause angrily. “I was going to send for you. I issued orders that ali commanding officers of organizations on this post should per- sonally give their units an hour’s close order drill every morning. Yesterday morning I saw a sergeant drilling your squadron. Where were you, sir? Why weren’t you drilling them yourself?” H. P. S. GREENE “Why,” blurted Tommy, “I don’t know how to drill em. I never drilled anybody in my life!’ “What? You, a commissioned officer in the United States Army, stand ‘there and admit that you are not capable of drilling the men under your command? Well, sir, you are hereby relieved from that command. Remove yourself -and your belongings from the 946th Squadron’s barrack at once, to make room for your successor. And, young man, remember this: Never give ‘You don’t know how’ as an excuse in the United States Army. If you don’t know how, learn how! If you get an order, do it, and if you can’t do it, do as near it as you can. That will do. You may go.” OMMY dragged himself away dis- consolately, and had a couple of men of his late command carry his stuff back to the barrack with the open end. It was colder than ever now, after the warm quarters from which he had been ousted. But-on the other hand, perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. He had been flying lately, and had graduated from the penguins whose wings were too short to fiy, and from the gawky twenty- three meter Nieuports, and now he was on the eighteens. He ought to be finished with them soon, and then he would be due to move away from the main field to Field 5 for the smaller, faster fifteen meter machines. Perhaps there would have been some hitch about going if he’d been hooked up with the squadron, but now he could leave as soon as he was ready. And he was ready to go somewhere, too. He’d now been quarantined at Issy- la-Boue for over a month and hadn’t been able to leave the post for a bath. If it _ wasn’t the measles or the mumps it was the chicken pox, or somebody had a sore toe. There was a spreading line of red blotches around his waist, and he knew only too well what it was. The scabies! And from his experience with the French he knew there was only one cure—hot sulphur baths with a scrubbing brush, and comnlicloooks.com