Mulligan said, “Yes, sir. I was just coming
along but I thought the captain might be a little hungry. I was just getting a
snack ready for the captain.” He reached behind him and brought out the great
pile of roast-beef sandwiches, which he passed about. Now, whether these sandwiches
had been prepared for just such an emergency or whether Mulligan had intended
to eat them himself will never be known. We prefer to believe that it was just
as he said. Mulligan is a thoughtful friend and an unselfish man. Besides this,
he never goes into a blind alley. He has always a line of retreat, which simply
proves that he is a good soldier.
Should his officer be faint with hunger,
Mulligan has a piece of chocolate to tide the captain over. What difference
that the chocolate belonged to the captain in the first place and he was led to
believe that it was all gone? The fact of the matter is that when he needs his
own chocolate Mulligan is happy to give him half of it.
The Big Train has been in England now something
over a year and he has acquired a speech which can only be described as
Georgia-Oxford. He addresses people as “mate” or even “mait.” He refuses to
learn that he cannot get petrol at a gas station but he refers to lifts and
braces.
Many an officer has tried to get Mulligan
promoted to a corporalcy, if only to have something to break him from, but he
is firmly entrenched in his privacy. There is nothing you can do to Mulligan
except put him in jail and then you have no one to drive you. If he were a
corporal you could break him, but Mulligan has so far circumvented any such
move on the part of his superiors. When the recommendation has gone in, at just
the right moment he has been guilty of some tiny infraction of the rules—not
much, but just enough to make it impossible to promote him. His car is a little
bit dirty at inspection. Mulligan does six hours’ full-pack drill and is safe
from promotion for a good time.
Mulligan has nearly everything he wants—women,
leisure, travel, and companionship. He wants only one thing and he is trying
to work out a way to get it. He would like a dog, preferably a Scottie, and he
would like to take it in his car with him. So far he has not worked out his
method, but it is a foregone conclusion that he will not only get his dog but
that his officer will feed it, and when Mulligan has a date in the evening his
officer will probably take care of the dog for him and will feel very good
about it, too. The Army is a perfect setting for this Mulligan. He would be
foolish ever to leave it. And he is rarely foolish.
