noon
I think I 'll go to the colonel and -- '' But whatever Hyman was going to do he did not explain , for the notes of assembly rang out and all the men in the squad room hastened outside , yet did it with that dignity and seeming deliberation that the soldier soon acquires . Drill was over in something like an hour . Hal and Noll returned to squad room , where they spent some little time going over their equipment . Then they sauntered outside , for there was still some time before the noon meal at company mess . `` Look at Hyman , in that tree over yonder , '' said Hal , nodding in the direction . Corporal Hyman was sitting on one of the lower limbs of a tree some four hundred yards away . It was close to the wall that ran along the front of the reservation , and overlooked the road that came up from the town of Clowdry .