I bade my new friends a sleepy good-night, and remembered nothing till I heard the reveille sound the next morning. I started up to find myself lying in a tent with a half-dozen others. For a moment I was a little bewildered. I rubbed my eyes. The bugle had ceased, and I heard the voices of the birds saluting the bright May morning. The curtain of the tent had been withdrawn, and the bright light and the sweet air came in.
“You can lie there as long as you like,” said one of my comrades. “There’s no need for you to get up yet.”
But I was eager to be up and about. It was a glorious morning. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and the tents, stretching far, were flashing in its light. Everywhere was stir and motion, and many salutations of comrade to comrade resounded on all sides.
I was delighted with the scene, the well-ordered tents with wide streets between, the flags and bannerets fluttering in the brisk morning air, the bustling soldiers, the neighing horses, the fanfare of the trumpets. It was just the scene to captivate the heart of a youth. Here was all the glorious pageantry of war untarnished, and that buoyant sense of life that forbade all thoughts of disaster or defeat, and their woeful consequences.
“That tent yonder,” said one of my comrades, who was drying his hair after dipping his head in a bucket of water, “with the French standard over it is the tent of the Lieutenant-General, the Marquis de Sylvestre, and that to the right of it at the end of our lines is the colonel’s. The Marshal, the Duke de Noailles ought to be in command, but he is ill, and the marquis takes his place.”
Just then Sergeant O’Kelly came up to me.
“I am glad to see you looking so fresh, young gentleman,” said he, “this morning. We shall have breakfast soon, and after it you shall call on the colonel. The marquis intends to inspect all the troops to-day, and we must be early on parade. Hard work is expected in a day or two, and as the colonel is likely to be very busy you had better see him as soon as possible.”
About nine o’clock I presented myself at the colonel’s tent, and learned that he had just finished breakfast.
I handed my letters to the guard, and requested him to send them to the colonel. He called one of the colonel’s servants and gave him the letters. In a few seconds the servant returned, and ushered me into the presence of his master.
Young as I was I was surprised at his youth. He hardly looked his twenty-five years, and he was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen. He looked every inch a soldier—tall, well-knit and with an indefinable suggestion of strength and activity in his shapely figure. I bowed as I entered, and before I had well lifted up my head his hands were on my shoulders.