"You don't know Colonel Sapsworth," went on Captain Pringle. "He's what some of us call a holy terror. A fine officer, but has methods of his own. He's jolly good to us all, but he's determined to have no mugs about him. When I first brought you to him, I thought he didn't like you, but I found I was mistaken. All the same, he wanted to see the stuff you were made of. The truth is, he hasn't much of an opinion of O.T.C. men. He says that a lot of whipper-snappers from the public schools pass their exams, in the O.T.C., who are no more fit for officers than girls from a boarding-school. So, seeing you were willing to enlist as a private, he took you at your word. In fact, if Sapsworth had his way, he would have every officer in the Army rise from the ranks. No man, he maintains, can be a good officer unless he knows what it is to be a private. That was why you were sent here. He gave special instructions about you, however, and told the drill sergeant to keep his eye on you. He wanted to see what sort of stuff you were made of."
"You've got your Lieutenancy. That's the answer. Here we are."
Bob felt very uncomfortable during the next half-hour. As Pringle said, the Colonel was not a man who would stand any nonsense. He gave Bob some wholesome advice in no honeyed terms; he asked him many searching questions, after which he shook hands with him, and wished him good luck.
If Bob had worked hard as a private, he worked still harder as an officer. The work was, of course, different, yet it was essentially the same. Every day he expected orders to go to the front, but day followed day without the order being given. Meanwhile it seemed as though he were doing three days' work in one.
Of course the circumstances were somewhat more pleasant than they had been, the society was more congenial, and, instead of sleeping twelve in a tent, there were only two. Still the life was rough and hard.
"I wonder when we shall be off!" thought Bob, after what seemed to him an interminable number of days. "Pringle said we were to start immediately, and yet we are still hanging around here."
At length the orders arrived, and one night Bob found himself in a closely packed train bound for the South Coast. He wondered at what he called his good fortune in being allowed to start so soon, but reflected that he owed it to Captain Pringle's good offices and to what were called the Colonel's eccentricities. He rejoiced now, although he had been very reluctant at the time, that he had joined the O.T.C. This, of course, had made it possible for him to get to the front so soon.