They told us to mind our own business, which is not manners, even if you are a soldier on private affairs.
'Oh, all right,' said Oswald, who is the eldest. And he advised the soldiers to keep their hair on. The little they had was cut very short.
'I expect they're scouts or something,' said Dicky; 'it's a field-day, or a sham-fight, or something, as likely as not.'
'Let's go after them and see,' said Oswald, ever prompt in his decidings. So we did.
We ran a bit at first, so as not to let the soldiers have too much of a lead. Their red coats made it quite easy to keep them in sight on the winding white marsh road. But we did not catch them up: they seemed to go faster and faster. So we ran a little bit more every now and then, and we went quite a long way after them. But they didn't meet any of their officers or regiments or things, and we began to think that perchance we were engaged in the disheartening chase of the wild goose. This has sometimes occurred.
There is a ruined church about two miles from Lymchurch, and when we got close to that we lost sight of the red coats, so we stopped on the little bridge that is near there to reconnoitre.
The soldiers had vanished.
'Well, here's a go!' said Dicky.
'It is a wild-goose chase,' said Noël. 'I shall make a piece of poetry about it. I shall call the title the "Vanishing Reds, or, the Soldiers that were not when you got there."'
'You shut up!' said Oswald, whose eagle eye had caught a glimpse of scarlet through the arch of the ruin.