He swung slowly on his heel and left me, at a pace almost as listless as his voice. I felt hurt, rebuffed. To be sure he was an officer now, and I a small bugler: still, without compromising himself, he might (I felt) have spoken more kindly.
The fatigue party descended, the tents were brought up and distributed, and at a silent signal sprang up and expanded like lines of mushrooms. The camp was formed; and the 52nd, in high good humour, opened their haversacks and fell to their breakfast.
The meal over, the men lit their pipes and stretched themselves within the tents to make up arrears of sleep. It does not take a boy long to learn how to snatch a nap even on half-thawed turf packed with moisture, and to manage it without claiming much room. We were eleven in our tent, not counting the sergeant—who had gone off on some errand which he did not explain, but which interested the men sufficiently to keep them awake for a while discussing it in low voices.
I was at once too shy to ask questions and too sleepy to listen attentively. Here was war, I told myself, and I was in it. To be sure, I had not yet seen a shot fired, nor—save for the infrequent boom of a gun beyond the hill—had I heard one: and yet all my ideas of war were undergoing a change. My uppermost sense— odd as it may seem—was one of infinite protection. It seemed impossible that, with all these cheerful men about me, joking and swearing, I could come to much harm. It surprised me, after my months of yearning and weeks of tramping to reach this army, to discover how little my presence was regarded even in my own regiment. The men took me for granted, asking no questions. I might have strolled in upon them out of nowhere, with my hands in my pockets. And the officers, it appeared, were equally incurious. Captain Lockhart, commanding the company, had scarcely flung me a look. The Colonel I had not seen: the Adjutant had dismissed me to the devil: and Archibald Plinlimmon had treated me as I have told. All this indifference contained much comfort. I began to understand the restfulness of a great army—a characteristic left clean out of account in a boy's imaginings, who thinks of war as a series of combats and brilliant personal efforts at once far more glorious and more terrifying than the reality.
So I dreamed, secure, until awakened by my comrades' voices, lifted all together and all excitedly questioning Sergeant Henderson, whose head and shoulders intruded through the flap-way.
"Light Company and Number 3," he was announcing.
"Blasted favouritism!" swore the man next to me. "Ain't there no other battalion company in the regiment, that Number 3's been picked for special twice now in four days?"
"The Major's sweet on 'em, that's why," snarled another.
"I ain't saying nothing against the Bobs. But what's the matter with us, I'd like to know? Why Number 3 again? Ugh, it makes me sick!"
"Our fun'll come later, lads," said the sergeant cheerfully. "When you reach my years you'll have learnt to wait. Now, if you'd asked me, I'd have chosen the grenadiers: they're every bit as good as a light company for this work."