"It's you that should shut up and teach the toes of you to walk hushlike.If you go on like this, you living watchman's rattle, the Boers can hear you, clear up in the Transvaal.Tell me, little one, have you seen your captain yet?""Captain Frazer?"
"Yes, Captain Leo Frazer, sure as you're a trooper of C.Squadron.
You're in luck, boy.There's not a better soldier nor a finer Christian, this side the line.Neptune must have give him an extry scrubbing, when he come over, for he's white he is, all white.
Boys!" Paddy spoke in a portentous whisper.
"Let her go," Weldon advised him calmly.
"It goes without letting.Once let Paddy get free of his skillets, once let him have a rifle in place of his spoon, and you'll see war.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a spot of everlasting peace.All I ask of Saint Peter is a place in front of a line of Boers and Captain Frazer beside me to give the orders.""Here he is, Paddy." The low-pitched voice was full of mirth."He orders you inside your tent to plan up an extra good breakfast.Some of these fellows must volunteer for a night guard out in the open, and they will need a feast, when they come in."Weldon rose hastily.
"At your service, Captain," he said, just as Paddy, in nowise daunted by the unexpected presence of his superior, responded,--"Sure, Captain, I put a condition on the tail of it.If you'll remember back a little, you'll see that I merely said, 'when I get a rifle instead of a spoon.' It's a sorry day for an able-bodied man to be tied to a frying pan all his days.Now and then he longs to leap out and get into the fire."Meanwhile, half of the men inside the church were volunteering for the party of twenty guards demanded by the Captain.It was a surly night, cold and raw with a drizzling rain.Nevertheless, this was their first approach to anything even remotely resembling active service, and the men sought it eagerly.
By dint of attaching himself to the Captain's elbow and assuming that his going was an understood thing, Weldon accomplished his aim.
Eleven o'clock found him, wet to his skin, sneaking on the points of his toes through the thick grass beyond the river, with nineteen other men sneaking at his heels.There had been no especial pretext of Boers in the neighborhood; tactical thoroughness merely demanded a guard on the farther side of the river.Nevertheless, the enthusiastic fellows threw themselves into the game with the same spirit with which, twenty years before, they had faced the danger of a runaway by the tandem of rampant hall chairs.A stray Boer or two would have made an interesting diversion; but, even without the Boers, a night guard in the open possessed its own interest.
By four in the morning, the interest had waned perceptibly.The establishment of their force in a convenient hut and the placing of pickets had served to occupy an hour or so.After that, nothing happened.The storm was increasing.The rain beat ceaselessly on the corrugated iron roof of their shelter and made a dreary bass accompaniment to the strident tenor of the rising wind.Inside the but the men yawned and whispered together by turns.Carew's best jokes began to fall a little flat, and Weldon held his watch to his ear, to assure himself that it was still in active service.Then hastily he thrust the watch into his pocket, gathered up his sleeping-bag and removed himself to a remote corner of the hut, with Carew and a dozen more after him.
Not even the most enthusiastic champion of South African rights can affirm that the South African citizen is heedful of the condition of his lesser buildings.The rising wind had proved too much for the hut.Its joints writhed a little, seesawed up and down a little, then yawned like a weary old man.From a dozen points above, the rain came pattering down, seeking with unerring instinct that precise spot on each man's back where skin and collar meet.
"Whither?" Carew queried, as Weldon made his fifth move.
"Outside, to see what the pickets are about.""But it rains," Carew protested lazily.
"So I observe.Still, I'd rather take it outside as it comes, instead of having a gutter empty itself on me, when I am supposed to be under cover.""Better stay in," Carew advised him.
"No use.Sleep is out of the question, and I'd rather be moving; it is less monotonous.""Go along, then, and look out for Boers.Can I have your bag?""You're too wet; you'd soak up all the inside of it.If I am to get a chill, I'd rather do it from my dampness than your own." Carew laid hands on the bag.
"What a selfish beast you are, Weldon!" he observed tranquilly.
"This is no sack-race; you can't go out to walk in your bag.In fact, it takes two to make a navigable pair.Then why not let me have it?""Why didn't you bring your own?"
Already Carew was arranging himself in his new covering.
"I mislaid mine in Cape Town," he replied sleepily."Now please go away.I need my beauty nap."An hour later, he was roused by a sharp reversal of his normal position.When he became fully awake, he was lying in a pool of water in the middle of the hut, and Weldon was in possession of the blankets and bag.
"What's the row?" he asked thickly."I'm a Canadian, out here shooting Boers.Oh, I say!" And he was on his feet, saluting the man at Weldon's side.
"The only bag in the squadron, Captain Frazer," Weldon was explaining."The blankets are quite dry.Roll yourself up, and you will be warm in a few minutes."Carew surveyed the transfer with merry, impartial eyes.
"Well, I like that," he said, when the Captain's yellow head was all that was visible above the encircling cocoon."I thought you said that you preferred to catch cold from your own wetness, Weldon.Iwas merely damp; this man is a sponge."
Before Weldon could answer, the yellow head turned, and the blue eyes looked up into Carew's eyes laughingly.
"Merely one of the privileges of rank, Carew," the Captain observed as dryly as if he had not risen from his warm bed to swim the river and walk a mile in the darkness and the downpour, in order to see how the new boys were getting on.
