"No, at him."
"Him, what for?"
"To think what a fool he is, hammering away like that."
"Hammering?"
"Yes, driving the nails in."
"Don't know what on earth you're talking about, don't suppose you do either. Well, I'm off, there's a busy time ahead for all of us," and Peter rose and went out, leaving Graeme deep in thought. For some minutes he sat there, and then walked across to the window, where he stood looking down on the squadron lines below, already permeated with the spirit of unrest, born of the news of the coming move.
Hurrying to and fro, pointing with his stick and explaining the obvious, Major Rawson could be seen, two harassed-looking subalterns and the Sergeant-Major in close attendance; while some distance away, grave-faced and dignified, Colonel Schofield was standing, issuing orders to the alert Ferrers, who was zealously taking down the same in a large note-book.
A feeling of angry contempt was aroused in Graeme as he looked. "Fussy fools," he muttered, "the whole regiment turned upside down because of a move of a few hundred miles. God! there's Rawson lifting a saddle and weighing it. Why don't he take his coat off and groom the horses and pack the kits while he's about it? And you're worse," he continued scornfully, apostrophising his unconscious C.O., "you're a damned humbug, you are; for only the other day you agreed with Quentin when he told me that to make others work and not work yourself was the thing, and now you see the exact reverse going on you stand there and say nothing. Make me sick, the whole lot of you do. Wish to God I had the running of the show; I'd soon stop all that, and at the same time get them off with no bother at all."
He turned from the window and threw himself down on the bed once more, where he lay evolving schemes of fussless removal, and then, his interest in the subject growing, he seized pencil and paper and committed his ideas to writing. And, as it happened, the idle occupation of a few minutes was not wasted, for Major Rawson, possibly from over-anxiety, was that same evening laid low by fever, and the command of the squadron consequently devolved upon Hector, who thereupon proceeded to put his newly-hatched plans into execution. Ignoring hourly messages and instructions from the sick-bed, he the next morning summoned his non-commissioned officers to his quarters, and after an hour's conversation dismissed them, he himself departing for the day in quest of Cee Cee.[#] Nor, except for half an hour daily, did he subsequently visit the lines, though in the other squadrons all the officers were in attendance throughout the day.
[#] A kind of rock partridge.