“What do you say, Bracy?”
“I say of course they are, sir.”
“Yes, because you’re a boy yourself,” said the Major in a tone which made the young man flush.
“I wish I had some more boys like you, Bracy, my lad,” said the Colonel warmly. “Graham’s a bit touched in the liver with the change from warm weather to cold. He doesn’t mean what he says – eh, Morton?”
“That’s right, Colonel,” said the Doctor. “I have my eye upon him. He’ll be asking for an interview with me to-morrow, re, as the lawyers say, B.P. and B.D.”
“Hang your B.P.s and B.D.s!” said the Major hotly. “I mean what I say, Colonel. These boys ought to have had three or four years in England before they were sent out here.”
“But they are sent up into the hills here where the climate is glorious, sir,” cried the Doctor, “and I’ll answer for it that in a year’s time they will have put on muscle in a wonderful way, while in a couple of years you’ll be proud of them.”
“I’m proud of the lads now,” said the Colonel quietly.
“I’m not,” said the Major. “I feel like old Jack Falstaff sometimes, ready to say, ‘If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I’m a soused gurnet.’ They’re boys, and nothing else.”
“Nonsense,” said the Colonel good-humouredly. “I’ve seen some service, and I never had men under me who marched better or more cheerfully than these lads have to-day.”
“And not one fell out or came to me with sore feet,” said the Doctor stoutly. “Boys? Well, hang it all! they’re not such boys as there were in the old 34th.”
“What do you mean?” said the Major, shooting his eyeglass again.
“In the Peninsular War, sir,” said the Doctor; “a regiment of boys, whose ages were from fourteen to sixteen, and they behaved splendidly.”
“That’s right,” said the Colonel, nodding his head.
“Oh yes,” cried the Major superciliously; “but they had only the French to fight against. Any English boy could thrash a Frenchman.”
“Don’t despise the French, Graham,” said the Colonel quietly. “They are a very brave and gallant nation; and as to our lads, I certainly agree that they are very young; but when, as the Doctor says, they have been out here a bit, and put on more muscle – ”
“But, hang it all, sir!” cried the Major, “they didn’t come out here to put on muscle, but to fight. And as to your 34th, our fellows haven’t got to fight Frenchmen, but these big hill-tribes. The boys are right enough in their place, and we shall make soldiers of them in time; but suppose to-morrow or next day we come plump upon the enemy – what then?”
“Our boys will make them run, sir,” cried Bracy, flushing up.
“You mean they’ll make our lads run,” growled the Major.
“No, I don’t, sir. I’ll answer for our company. What do you say, Roberts?”
“Same as you do, old man. Go on; you can put it stronger than I can.”
“No,” said Bracy: “perhaps I’ve said too much, as the youngest officer in the regiment.”
“Not a bit, my lad,” cried the Colonel warmly. “I endorse all you say. They are terribly young-looking, but, take them all together, as bright and plucky a set of fellows as any officer could wish to command.”
“Yes,” said the Major through his teeth; “but look at them to-day. Hang me if they didn’t at times seem like a pack of schoolboys out for a holiday – larking and shouting at one another, so that I got out of patience with them.”
“Better like that than limping along, discontented and footsore,” said the Colonel gravely. “The boys are as smart over their drill as they can be, and a note on the bugle would have brought every one into his place. I don’t want to see the life and buoyancy crushed out of lads by discipline and the reins held too tightly at the wrong time. By the way, Graham, you dropped the curb-rein on your horse’s neck coming up the rough pass, and thoroughly gave him his head.”
“Yes,” said the Major; “but we were talking about men, not horses.”
“Bah! Don’t listen to him,” cried the Doctor, laughing. “He’s a bit yellow in the eyes, and he’ll be singing quite a different song soon. The boys are right enough, Colonel, and all the better for being young – they’ll mould more easily into your ways.”
“Humph!” growled the Major, frowning at the Doctor, who responded by raising his glass, nodding, and drinking to him.
It did not seem long before the bugle sounded, and the men fell in, every lad drawing himself well up, trying to look his best and as proud as a peacock, when the Colonel rode along the ranks, noting everything and ready to give boy after boy a look of recognition and a word of praise about something which had been improved; for Colonel Graves had one of those memories which seem never to forget, and it had long been borne in upon the lads in the ranks that their leader noted and remembered everything, ready for blame or praise.
In this case he drew rein opposite one very thin-looking fellow, making his sallow face turn red.
“Felt any more of that sprain, Smith?”
“No, sir; right as can be now. Ain’t felt it a bit.”
“That’s right. Fall out, my lad, if it turns weak in the least, and get a ride.”
“Yes, sir; thanky, sir. I will, sir.”
A little farther on there was another halt.
“Those boots right, Judkins?”
“Yes, sir; fit splendid, sir.”
“Good. Take care for the future; you and all of you. A man can’t march well unless he has a comfortable boot, and a chafe once begun and neglected has sent many a good soldier into hospital.”
“These are fust-rate, sir,” said the man quickly. “Easy as a glove.”
And so on as the Colonel rode along the ranks, making every man feel that his officer had a real interest in his welfare.
The inspection over, the advance-guard set off, then the order, “Band to the front,” was given, and the regiment filed off past the Colonel’s horse, making for a narrow opening between two hills which seemed to overlap, and sent back the strains of the musical instruments in a wonderful series of echoes which went rolling among the mountains, to die away in the distance.
Half-an-hour later the only signs left of the occupation of the pass were a few birds hovering about and stooping from time to time after some fragment of food. But all at once the birds took flight, as if in alarm, and the cause was not far to seek; for there was a flash in the afternoon sunshine among the rugged masses of half-frozen rocks on one side of the amphitheatre; then another flash, and a looker-on would have seen that it came from the long barrel of a gun.
Directly after appeared a tall, swarthy man in white which looked dingy by comparison with the beds of snow lying on the northern side of the mountains.
The
