Field-Marshal David inspects his guard of honour
The next one had got a croquet-mallet on his shoulder, the next a golf-club, and on the shoulder of the next was sitting a grey parrot, who pretended to sneeze loudly as David passed. The next had an umbrella, the next a pair of tongs; then came a judge in a wig, and a newspaper man who had folded a copy of the Times into a sort of lance. Altogether they were the oddest kind of guard of honour that David could imagine, and reminded him of some new sort of happy families. But then they might all be thinking that he was an equally curious sort of Field-Marshal, and so it was best, for the present, to pretend that everything was in order.
He came to the end of this very extraordinary line, and didn’t know what to do next. But his Brigadier-General whispered to him, ‘Say something nice, your Grace, and dismiss them. They know what to do.’
‘It’s all extremely nice,’ said David in a loud firm voice, ‘and I congratulate you on your fit and soldierly appearance. You are all dismissed. Good-night.’
The Brigadier-General gave a little sob.
‘They will all remember your Grace’s beautiful words till their dying day,’ he said, as the men fell out. ‘I dare say they won’t have long to wait for that,’ he added.
‘Oh, do you expect a battle soon?’ asked David.
‘Your Grace shall see the maps that show the movement of the enemy for yourself,’ said the Brigadier-General.
All the time they were threading their way through the tents on the lawn, and tripping over ropes and stepping into saucepans, and hitting their toes against shells, for the light from the door in the ground had gone out, and it was impossible to see what there was, or where you were going. The Brigadier-General’s spurs got constantly caught in tent-ropes: when this happened he cut the rope with his sword, and the tent fell down flat. David thought this was rather a high-handed and hasty proceeding, but he daren’t say much for fear of betraying some desperate ignorance, for it might be the privilege of Brigadier-Generals to cut any ropes they pleased.
Presently they came to a large square tent brilliantly lit inside, so that David could read the notice-board outside it, which said: