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Upstarts
"Well, sir, " said S/Sgt Gault, my chief of detail, "I had a spare field jacket, and I
though of letting him use it, but it had my stripes on the sleeves, and I didn't want nobody
to think that bastard was a Staff Sergeant."
A proper ending for this story would be that Pvt Martitegui died of exposure like
the Little Match Girl or was hospitalized for galloping consumption. Fortunately or
unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, he survived the ordeal without even a
head cold.
I had mixed emotions about it. If he had died, I would have had to do a lot of
explaining why, as battery commander, I had not taken better care of him. On the other
hand, I would have been spared the paperwork involved in getting him court-martialed
for AWOL. I sighed, and prepared the court martial charges.
And eventually some other battery commander started the paperwork to get him
discharged under "Section 8," as unsuitable for military service.
Which, of course, was what he had worked for all along.
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