Читать книгу Funny Stories Told by the Soldiers - Case Carleton Britton - Страница 24

The commandant of one of the great French army supply depots was busy one morning. He was a man of forty; a colonel in the regular French army. He was talking to an American colonel when an erect, sturdy-looking man with white hair and mustache and who wore the single star of a subaltern on his sleeve came up, saluted, delivered a message and then asked:

“Are there any more orders, sir?”

When he was told that there were none he brought his heels together with a click, saluted again and went away.

The commandant turned to the American with a peculiar smile on his face and asked:

“Do you know who that man is?”

“No,” was the reply.

“That is my father,” was the answer.

The father was then exactly seventy-two years old. He was a retired business man when the war broke out. After two years of the heroic struggle he decided that he couldn’t keep out of it. He was too old to fight, but after long insistence he secured a commission. By one of the many curious coincidences of war he was assigned to serve under his son.