Sergeant Linham cursed the Russians most heartily. ‘It’s just one of their dirty tricks,’ he said, ‘to keep us hanging about in the saddle for two or three hours, cold and starving, then to draw off, doing nothing.’
At night the watch-fires of the Russians could be plainly seen, and the cavalry were kept under arms; but in the morning the enemy had entirely disappeared, a fact about which there were a good many things Sergeant Linham ‘wanted to know.’
CHAPTER XXX.
A NIGHT ON VEDETTE DUTY.
DURING the next few days the enemy kept pretty quiet, and on the night of the 24th Jack’s troop mounted picket for vedette duty at No. 1 Turkish Redoubt. In the evening rain set in, and it poured down for hours. There was an old wagon-shed at the back of the redoubt which was used as a picket-house by the men on guard, and while there they were fairly comfortable.
Sergeant Barrymore, Jack, Brandon, Pearson, and the others of the relief, wrapped in their cloaks, were huddling round the fire and blessing their luck in being out on such a nasty night, when a jingle of spurs was heard and a rough voice cried, ‘Ha, hum! not much trouble to surprise this picket, I’m thinking;’ and Sergeant Linham stepped into the circle of firelight.
‘Hallo, Jim!’ said Barrymore, ‘what brings you here?’
‘First, my legs; second, I’m not feeling sleepy; third, I got a bottle of rum down in Balaclava to-day from a friend of mine in the commissariat; so I thought a tot round would be welcome to you.’
‘Forward, true friend and comrade,’ said Brandon, ‘for has it not been written: “Wine maketh glad the heart of man”?’
‘You’ve got a quotation for everything, Frank?’ said Pearson; ‘you’re like an encyclopædia with the covers off.’
‘Compliments fly when friends meet’ replied Brandon.