“For God's sake shut up. Taps has blown. Meadville, turn the lights out!” said the corporal angrily. The barracks was dark, full of a sound of men undressing in their bunks, and of whispered talk. The company was lined up for morning mess. The sun that had just risen was shining in rosily through the soft clouds of the sky. The sparrows kept up a great clattering in the avenue of plane trees. Their riotous chirping could be heard above the sound of motors starting that came from a shed opposite the mess shack. The sergeant appeared suddenly; walking past with his shoulders stiff, so that everyone knew at once that something important was going on. “Attention, men, a minute,” he said. Mess kits clattered as the men turned round. “After mess I want you to go immediately to barracks and roll your packs. After that every man must stand by his pack until orders come.” The company cheered and mess kits clattered together like cymbals. “As you were,” shouted the top sergeant jovially. Gluey oatmeal and greasy bacon were hurriedly bolted down, and every man in the company, his heart pounding, ran to the barracks to do up his pack, feeling proud under the envious eyes of the company at the other end of the shack that had received no orders. When the packs were done up, they sat on the empty hunks and drummed their feet against the wooden partitions waiting. “I don't suppose we'll leave here till hell freezes over,” said Meadville, who was doing up the last strap on his pack. “It's always like this.... You break your neck to obey orders an'...” “Outside!” shouted the sergeant, poking his head in the door. “Fall in! Atten-shun!” The lieutenant in his trench coat and in a new pair of roll puttees stood facing the company, looking solemn. “Men,” he said, biting off his words as a man bites through a piece of hard stick candy; “one of your number is up for courtmartial for possibly disloyal statements found in a letter addressed to friends at home. I have been extremely grieved to find anything of this sort in any company of mine; I don't believe there is another man in the company... low enough to hold... entertain such ideas....” Every man in the company stuck out his chest, vowing inwardly to entertain no ideas at all rather than run the risk of calling forth such disapproval from the lieutenant. The lieutenant paused: “All I can say is if there is any such man in the company, he had better keep his mouth shut and be pretty damn careful what he writes home.... Dismissed!” He shouted the order grimly, as if it were the order for the execution of the offender. “That goddam skunk Eisenstein,” said someone. The lieutenant heard it as he walked away. “Oh, sergeant,” he said familiarly; “I think the others have got the right stuff in them.” The company went into the barracks and waited.