Sandgate, again saluting, took it mechanically. As he glanced down the sheet, he gave a start, and his handsome sun-browned face lost all its colour, then flushed, as he mastered, in cold official phraseology, that on account of his heroic endurance, which had resulted in the saving of vitally important despatches entrusted to his care, from falling into the hands of the enemy, and by reason of his general efficiency and zealous service, he was appointed to the rank of Sub-Inspector in the room of the late Sub-Inspector Francis Madden of D. Troop, killed in action at the Qora River.
Sandgate entertained no clear idea of what happened when he had grasped the purport of this announcement, only a confused recollection of not being quite responsible for his actions. In point of fact he sprang forward impulsively, and, seizing the Commandant by the hand, shook it again and again without ceremony.
“Oh, sir! This is all your doing,” he cried. “And I—can’t say anything.”
“Then don’t try,” was the answer. And a kindly smile lurked in the ordinarily imperturbable face. The joke was one which appealed to its owner.
Just after this, troop after troop of armed and mounted levies came pouring into the Transkei. Every part of the Colony had responded to the call, and the Gcaleka country was swept from end to end, its defeated inhabitants retreating sullenly across the Bashi, there to billet themselves, more or less by force, upon the weaker tribes which occupied the country further to the eastward. But these reinforcements, relieving the Police, enabled the latter to withdraw to the frontier, where it might be that in the near course of events their services would be even more urgently needed.
And Sub-Inspector Sandgate went to join his new troop, in a state of mind representing that there was hardly anything left in life to wish for.