In that he was mistaken!
A half hour later, §till slouching despairingly about the camp, he met Nastee.
Nastee’s sly little face was twisted with a gloating smile, and he was almost dancing in his glee. Tink was too miserably preoccupied to notice these ominous symptoms.
“Too bad, too bad,” Nastee chortled, “but it’s a case of the best man winning. I always knew she liked me, but I hardly thought she’d throw you over like this.”
“Like what?” Tink said stupidly. “What are you talking about?”
“Your girl,” Nastee said, grinning widely.
“What about her?” Tink demanded.
Nastee smirked smugly.
“There’s a party in the glen tonight. She wants me to go with her. I knew she’d get tired of you sooner or later.”
Tink listened incredulously, a sick empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“I don’t believe you,” he gasped weakly.
“Come along and see,” Nastee said with a challenging smirk. “I’m meeting, her at the camp gate.”
With a mounting premonition of impending disaster Tink followed Nastee to the camp gate and there he realized that Nastee was not lying. Jing was waiting for him!
She was smiling brightly at Nastee, ignoring Tink.
“I’m glad you could come,” she said.
Nastee smirked at Tink and took her by the arm.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They left, arm-in-arm, smiling.
Tink groaned, watching them depart, Jing’s disloyalty left him stunned and hopelessly miserable. With slumping shoulders and a deep distrust in all womankind, he returned to the camp.
Night came and he fell into a despairing slumber, resolved to return to America as soon as possible...
When he was awakened from a fitful slumber some hours later by a hand shaking his shoulder, he was still truculent and cynical.
“Wake up!” a voice said urgently.
“There’s no time to waste.”
He opened his eyes, looked up and saw Jing standing over him, a faint flush of excitement coloring her exquisite features.
“You!” Tink said. He struggled to a sitting position. “You — Brutus,” he said moodily.
“Don’t be melodramatic,” Jing said. “I only went out with Nastee to see if he’d spill something.”
“Ha!” Tink said bleakly.
“For heaven’s sake,” Jing said, a faint annoyance creeping into her tone, “stop acting like the second act of a bad play. I’ll admit I was mad at you for a while, but then I remembered what you said about Nastee being at the bottom of the trouble between the Captain and the Irish colleen, and I decided to investigate.”
Tink still felt injured but his curiosity got the better of him.
“And what did you find out?” he asked.
Jing smiled triumphantly.
“Nastee is responsible for the trouble,” she announced. “When we got to the glen he started bragging about how much smarter he is than you.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Tink said. “Yes he did. He made out a pretty good case for himself too.” Jing giggled. “Then he found a beer bottle with a few drops left, so he crawled in and finished them up. He got so drunk he could hardly get back out of the bottle. I had to pull him out by the hair of his head.”
“Sounds like everybody had a fine time,” Tink said with a sad sigh.
“Don’t be silly,” Jing said crisply. “When he got out of the bottle he told me the whole story of how he broke up the Captain’s romance with Eileen McCarthy. Then he passed out under a toadstool. I hurried right here, to tell you.”
In spite of his hurt feelings Tink found his interest quickening.
“And what did Nastee do?” he demanded.
“It’s simply a case of mistaken identity,” Jing said. “I’ll tell you the whole story and you can decide what to do.”
When she finished Tink leaped to his feet.
“I should have suspected something like this. Now let’s get this straight. There are two James Donavons in camp. One a private, and the other the Captain. Nastee found some of the private’s mail, planted it on the Captain — Oh, how simple it must have been!”
“What can we do to help?” Jing asked anxiously. “She’s such a lovely girl it would be a shame if we couldn’t straighten things out for her.”
“Where’s the letter that started all this trouble?” Tink demanded.
“I don’t know,” Jing answered. “Nastee wouldn’t tell me. I think he hid it somewhere after the damage was done.”
Tink frowned. “That’s bad. We need that letter. But we can’t waste time looking for it. We’ve got to figure out some way to make Private James Donavon meet this girl that Captain James Donavon was in love with.”
“What good will that do?” Jing asked.
“Can’t tell,” Tink shrugged. “Maybe none. But there’s just a chance if we get them together something will happen to explain the whole thing. You see if this girl realized, that it was another James Donavon’s mail that she had read, it would automatically clear things up.”
“It’s a long chance, isn’t it?” Jing said worriedly. “And how are you going to bring Private James Donavon and the girl together? No soldiers are allowed to leave camp you know.”
“I know,” Tink said, “but I’ve got an idea. Come on, let’s go over to the Captain’s quarters.”
Captain James Donavon was seated at his desk when Tink and Jing entered the tent. His orderly was standing beside him.
“Who shall I send to the village for your luggage, sir?” the orderly asked.
The Captain was staring moodily at the letters on his desk, his face set in gloomy lines.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Corporal Reynolds will do, if he isn’t busy. I’ll write out a pass for him.”
He picked up a pen and pulled a scratch pad toward him. His pen scratched faintly as he scrawled out the pass and signed it hurriedly.
Tink nudged Jing excitedly.
“Maybe this is our break,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” asked Jing with a frown.
The Captain stood up and put his hat on.
“It’s too early for him to leave now,” he said, “but get him started after breakfast. I want to get this thing out of the way.”
With a brief nod to the orderly he stamped out of the tent, hard-faced and grim.
The orderly looked after him and shook his head sadly.
“Too bad,” he muttered, as he left the tent.
“Come on,” Tink said to Jing.
He grabbed the telephone cord and clambered to the top of the desk. Jing followed him with a puzzled look on her face.
“What have you got in mind?” she asked, as she joined him.
Tink was hastily scanning the pass the Captain had written out and he didn’t answer immediately...
“This might do it,” he said at last.
He hopped across the desk to where the pen was lying. Exerting all his strength he was able to lift one end from the desk.
“You’ll have to help me, Jing,” he panted. “Take the other end.”
“I still don’t see what you’re going to do,” Jing protested.
“Wait and see,” Tink said with a grin.
Between them they carried the heavy pen over to the pass the Captain had made out before leaving.
“This pass,” explained Tink, “has Corporal Reynolds’ name on it. All we have to do is scratch out his name and write in the name of Private James Donavon and presto! Our problem of getting him and the Captain’s girl together is solved.”
Jing shook her head admiringly.
“My, but you’re clever,” she said.