The sergeant-cook nodded absent-minded, and bewildered.
Tjaden seized him by the tunic.
"And sausage?"
Ginger nodded again.
Tjaden's chaps quivered.
"Tobacco too?"
"Yes, everything."
Tjaden beamed:
"What a bean-feast!
That's all for us!
Each man gets— wait a bit—yes, practically two issues."
Then Ginger stirred himself and said:
"That won't do."
We got excited and began to crowd around.
"Why won't that do, you old carrot?" demanded Katczinsky.
"Eighty men can't have what is meant for a hundred and fifty."
"We'll soon show you," growled Muller.
"I don't care about the stew, but I can only issue rations for eighty men," persisted Ginger.
Katczinsky got angry.
"You might be generous for once.
You haven't drawn food for eighty men. You've drawn it for the Second Company. Good.
Let's have it then.
We are the Second Company."
We began to jostle the fellow.
No one felt kindly toward him, for it was his fault that the food often came up to us in the line too late and cold. Under shellfire he wouldn't bring his kitchen up near enough, so that our soup-carriers had to go much farther than those of the other companies.
Now Bulcke of the First Company is a much better fellow.
He is as fat as a hamster in winter, but he trundles his pots when it comes to that right up to the very front-line.
We were in just the right mood, and there would certainly have been a dust-up if our company commander had not appeared.
He informed himself of the dispute, and only remarked:
"Yes, we did have heavy losses yesterday."
He glanced into the dixie.
"The beans look good."
Ginger nodded.
"Cooked with meat and fat."
The lieutenant looked at us.
He knew what we were thinking.
And he knew many other things too, because he came to the company as a non-com, and was promoted from the ranks.
He lifted the lid from the dixie again and sniffed.
Then passing on he said:
"Bring me a plate full.
Serve out all the rations.
We can do with them."
Ginger looked sheepish as Tjaden danced round him.
"It doesn't cost you anything!
Anyone would think the quartermaster's store belonged to him!
And now get on with it, you old blubber-sticker, and don't you miscount either."
"You be hanged!" spat out Ginger.
When things get beyond him he throws up the sponge altogether; he just goes to pieces.
And as if to show that all things were equal to him, of his own free will he issued in addition half a pound of synthetic honey to each man.
To-day is wonderfully good.