"But I can't git over missin' so many familiar voices in command, and hearin' others in their places," said Si. "That battalion drill they wuz havin' as we come in didn't sound like our rijimint at all. I could always tell which was our rijimint drillin' half a mile away by the sound of the voices. What a ringin' voice Capt. Scudder had. It beat the bugle. You could hear him sing out, 'Co. C, on right, into line! Forward, guide rightMarch!' farther'n you could the bugle. The last time I heard him wuz as we wuz' going up Snodgrass Hill. A rebel bullet went through his head just as he said, 'March!' Now, Lieut. Scripps is in command o' Co. C, and he's got a penny-whistle voice that I can't git used to."
Cadnan understood. "All right," he said, and the three masters left the room without more words. The door shut behind them and Gornom visibly relaxed. Yet there was still wariness behind the old eye. "I work in the field," he said after a second. "I am good worker in the field."
FORE:They all listened eagerly to the reading of the letter, and when it was finished looked for Shorty. But he had gone outside, where there was more air.
"I'll give you an example," she said after a little time. "The Psych division has parties, parties which are rather well-known among other divisions. The parties involve drinking and promiscuous sex, they get rather wild, but there is no great harm done by these activities. Indeed, they provide a useful, perhaps a necessary release." She paused. "Therefore I have forbidden them."There was a rush of infuriated men, which carried Shorty over and made him the object of a storm of blows and kicks. So many piled on him at once that they struck and kicked one another in their confusion. The door was torn out, and its pieces fell with the tumble of cursing, striking, kicking men that rolled outside.When the antiphon had been delivered Gornom waited a full second and then fell prostrate to the floor. The others followed his example, except for Cadnan, who, afraid to let himself fall on bare metal, crouched down slowly instead.