Westerling ran through the papers that Turcas had prepared for him. If
Turcas had written the order for the wounded, Westerling knew that it
was properly done. Having cleared his desk into the hands of his
executive clerk, he looked at the clock. It had barely turned four. He
picked up the final staff report of observations on the late Balkan
campaign, just printed in book form, glanced at it and laid it aside.
Already he knew the few lessons afforded by this war "done on the
cheap," with limited equipment and over bad roads. No dirigibles had
been used and few planes. It was no criterion, except in the effect of
the fire of the new pattern guns, for the conflict of vast masses of
highly trained men against vast masses of highly trained men, with rapid
transportation over good roads, complete equipment, thorough
organization, backed by generous resources, in the cataclysm of two
great European powers.

Rather idly, now, he drew a pad toward him and, taking up a pencil, made
the figures seventeen and twenty-seven. Then he made the figures
thirty-two and forty-two. He blackened them with repeated tracings as he
mused. This done, he put seventeen under twenty-seven and thirty-two
under forty-two. He made the subtraction and studied the two tens.

A swing door opened softly and his executive clerk reappeared with a
soft tread, unheard by Westerling engaged in mechanically blackening the
tens. The clerk, pausing as he waited for a signal of recognition,
observed the process wonderingly. To be absently making figures on a pad
was not characteristic of the vice-chief of staff. When he was absorbed
his habit was to tap the desk edge with the blunt end of his pencil.

"Some papers for your signature, sir," said the clerk as he slipped them
on the blotter in front of Westerling. "And the 132d--no order about