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Show Flying - 69 But when he walks into Biggs' office he finds a new lieutenant behind the desk, who after the preliminary saluting is over, waves him to a chair with a friendly smile. "I am Lieutenant Wilberforce," he says, "your new platoon leader." And he explains to John Henry why he should not have answered Sergeant Sutter's question with disrespect and obscenity. "The Army," says Wilberforce, "is an organism, like a big building, or the human body. Everything has an assigned place in it and when something gets out of place you have a sickness or a structural failure. It's like a great chain," says Wilberforce, "with every man one link." "Order," he tells John Henry, "that's what makes the Army possible. You sinned against order when you said that to Sergeant Sutter." "Yes. sir," says John Henry. Happy with the caliber of his explanation, the lieutenant sends John Henry away without further punishment and allows him to report that the new platoon leader is a friend to the oppressed and a man of wide learning. A man of reason. Biggs gone, O'Connell's men sit in happy idleness, play cards, drink coffee, talk about the prospects of freedom, discuss the coming maneuver. "Sounds good to me," says Arkwright. "Four months in |