"No, no, no," replied Major Baraquin in stentorian tones, without troubling to listen any further.
"But it will be necessary, sir, for the Portuguese who are going to land...."
"No, no, no, I tell you," Major
Baraquin repeated, resolved upon ignoring demands which he considered subversive and childish. This refrain was as far as he ever got in his conversations with Aurelle.
Next day several large British transports arrived, and disgorged upon the quay thousands of small, black-haired men who gazed mournfully upon the alien soil. It was snowing, and most of them were seeing snow for the first time in their lives. They wandered about in the mud, shivering in their spotted blue cotton uniforms and dreaming, no doubt, of sunny Alemtejo.
"They'll fight well," said Captain Pereira, "they'll fight well. Wellington called them his fighting cocks, and Napoleon said his Portuguese legion made the best troops in the world. But can you wonder they are sad?"
Each of them had brought with him a
pink handkerchief containing his collection of souvenirs—little reminders of his village, his people, or his best girl—and when they were told that they could not take their pink parcels with them to the front, there was a heart-breaking outcry.
Major Baraquin, with unconscious and sinister humour, had quartered them in the shambles.