"When once one is in civilian dress"--that seemed to be the noisy pass-word given out for the evening. It was as though these swaggering men could no longer endure the last hardly perceptible signs of the discipline to which they had so long obediently submitted; as though this evening would end in open mutiny.
Wolf took no part in these noisy demonstrations; he was perhaps the only reservist in the whole regiment who held aloof. He could not stand the noise and the drunkenness. The whole of that free afternoon he stayed in the barrack-room, dreaming away comfortably, and looking at the first-year men, who now, when the "old gang" had left, would suddenly have about twice as much to do as hitherto. If a non-commissioned officer crossed the threshold, he jumped up and stood at attention, quickly and accurately, just as he had done at any time during these last two years. Why not still continue to play the comedy for these few remaining hours, after having been an actor so long?
With almost affectionate zeal he cleaned and polished the accoutrements he had to hand over; and he had the satisfaction of having his kit held up as an example by Sergeant Keyser, his former enemy, to others who gave in things insufficiently cleaned. The sergeant, it is true, promptly ceased his praises when, seeing the name marked on the various articles, he realised who the exemplary gunner was; however, that was no matter.
After the orders of the day had been read, Wolf walked restlessly up and down the courtyard of the barracks. Would this day never end? The sun had set behind the heights in the west some time since, but a dull glow still overspread that part of the sky. He quitted the barracks by the back gate and walked round the great quadrangle of the drill-ground. The vast space had been freshly strewn with that fine coke refuse which, in the wet seasons of the year, works up into such an ugly black slush. In an absent-minded way he stirred the loose grit with the toe of his boot, then smoothed the surface with the sole, and dug little channels in it.
When he looked up from this amusement it was growing dark; and then the last evening was succeeded by the last night. Most of the men slept the heavy sleep of drunkenness; Wolf never closed his eyes. He heard every stroke of the clock, and the intervening half-hours seemed to him of infinite duration.
