“Yes. Colonel Boldre, whose regiment has mutinied, is raising a corps in the Balandghar district, and he has written to ask me if you may join him. I think it would be a good thing, and should advise you to jump at the chance.”
“Is there any likelihood of seeing active service with them, sir?”
The great statesman burst into one of his hearty laughs. He remembered the days when he was the age of Ted Russell—how he had longed to be a soldier like his father, who had led the forlorn hope at Seringapatam, or like his hero-brother Henry. The chuckles ceased, giving place to a sad smile as he thought of those past days. “A soldier I was born, and a soldier I will be!” he had declared as a lad, for all his family were soldiers. But the Lawrences were poor, and the civil service gave better remuneration than the military, and for his mother’s and sisters’ sakes John Lawrence had put aside the dream of his boyhood that he might earn enough to keep them from want. He knit his great brows and looked Ted up and down, and the boy did not know whether the grim administrator was pleased or displeased with him.
“So you have not smelt enough powder, eh?” he asked at length.
“I want to do my share, sir.”
“Boldre’s Horse are going to Cawnpore to join Sir Colin Campbell at once. The colonel will be setting out from Balandghar in a day or two, with perhaps a couple of hundred sowars, Sikhs, Pathans, and Punjabi Mohammedans. Mr. Jackson is raising a few score Sikhs and Dogras for him in the Jalandar district, and you are to set out at once to take charge of them, joining your commandant at Delhi.”
“Thank you, sir! it’s just what I should have chosen.”
“Very good! but remember this. Do your duty with just as much thoroughness whether it seem attractive or the reverse. Should your fate tie you to duties of an uneventful nature, should you be out of the fighting and excitement, and have little chance of distinguishing yourself, remember that your work may be quite as necessary and useful, if not so showy. So, whatever you may be called upon to do, do it gladly. I will write to Jackson.—— Oh! I forgot—I am sending Colonel Boldre a couple of Sikh native officers for his regiment, tried men who have been proved and found faithful. They will go with you. They are good men; remember that. Good-day!”
Delighted with the turn of events Ted hastened to call upon the two Sikh officers. “Jim was right,” he said to himself as he swung his leg over the saddle, “I am a lucky beggar. It’s better being in a British regiment than in a poorbeah lot, but better still to be with Sikh and Pathan cavalry or Gurkha infantry, because Tommy has to be taken such care of, or he’ll have sunstroke or cholera, or he’ll wander away and get his throat cut, or else walk into an ambush. But these Cossacks of the Punjab are in at most of the fun, and they catch Pandy in snares instead of being caught by him.”
Colonel Bratherton presented him to the two Sikhs. They were brothers, and in spite of a few years’ difference in age, he could hardly tell one from the other. Each was dressed in white—no colour being more popular among the Sikhs—the snowy turbans setting off the triangle of dark face left visible, with piercing eyes, deep-set and determined, the well-shaped nose, tight mouth, and long beard and moustache twisted and turned upwards over the ears. They were tall and strong, with thin but sinewy legs—in fact, all that Sikhs should be.