He looked up the records of Broussard and Lawrence and found that they were both natives of the same little town in Louisiana.

That might account for their intimacy, although Lawrence was fifteen years Broussard's senior.
Just as the Colonel's orderly was crossing the hall of the headquarters building he came face to face with Broussard, headed straight for Colonel Fortescue's office.

The orderly had a message from the Colonel for Mr.Broussard; the Colonel desired to see Mr.Broussard for a few minutes.
Broussard, like the Colonel, was not the man to shirk an unpleasant five minutes, so he made straight for the Colonel's private office.

In spite of his courageous advance, Broussard felt very much as Sergeant McGillicuddy described himself when in the abhorred buggy which Mrs.
McGillicuddy had given him as a Christmas gift, "Hollow inside." There is something appalling to a subaltern in the kind of an interview which Broussard felt was ahead of him.

He knew in advance the very tone in which Colonel Fortescue and all other Colonels prepare a wigging for a junior.