All day Saturday it poured with rain, and in the evening Jack and Will, after vainly striving to light a fire with damp roots, gave it up, and wrapping themselves in their cloaks retired inside their tent.
‘Do you know, Will,’ said Jack, ‘I can’t rid myself of a sort of feeling of impending disaster.’
‘After Balaclava no disaster can trouble me much,’ said Will gloomily.
‘True; but after all the cavalry were the only sufferers there. If anything happened to the whole army we should be in a hole if you like, and with the reinforcements the Russians have been receiving lately they must outnumber us and the French and Turks by at least two to one.’
‘I dare say.’
‘And tied up as we are, having to find all the pickets and guards, to man the trenches, keep open our road to Balaclava and guard that, why, if the Russians delivered an attack in force we couldn’t put ten thousand men in the field to face them to save our lives.’
‘Cheerful outlook,’ growled Will.
‘And if the Russians should surprise us we shouldn’t stand a chance.’
‘Pile it on, Jack.’
Both lapsed into silence, then Jack started up. ‘Will, I can’t rest,’ he said, ‘I feel something is going to happen. I’m going to creep by our Light Division pickets and try if I can see or hear anything. I noticed out by the Inkermann Heights dozens of places, ruins and caves, where any one could lie safely hidden from sight, but could yet observe all that was going on round them. Are you game to accompany me?’