It was almost nightfall when Phil and Tony reached Scutari again and rejoined their comrades, and there they remained until early in June, passing the greater part of their days in drills and musketry practice, and in exploring the surrounding country.
Chapter Eight.
Lost in the Crimea.
“Bustle up, you boys! Put your kit together, Tony, as quickly as you can, for we are off at last!” cried Phil excitedly, on his return one morning from the tent which had been set apart for the orderly-room clerks. “I have great news for you.”
“What is it? Out with it, Phil!” came in a chorus from the nine men who shared the tent with him. “A move at last! Hurrah! We’re all precious tired of this place. Is it Russia we’re off to?”
“No, not that, but Varna,” answered Phil. “We sail to-morrow, I have been told, and with the French march against the Russians. It will be the opening scene of a grand campaign, for I hear they are besieging Silistria, in the province of the Danube.”
“Then all them yarns about the Crimea, or whatever they calls it, and taking Sebastopol, is all wrong ’uns,” exclaimed Tony, with disgust. “Never mind, boys. I expects Silistria’s better than that. It’ll be warm at any rate; at least that’s what people say; and I shall be precious glad, for if there’s anything that upsets me, it’s freezing cold weather, and that’s what we’ll have in the Crimea.”
“Anything’s better, I reckon, than sticking in this here place,” chimed in another. “What have we been doing? Simply drilling day and night, it seems, and eating our rations. Wasting time, I calls it. Then every chap has been sick. See how many of our poor fellows has died. Let’s get out of this, I says. Anything’s better than sitting still.”