The Young Buglers

by G. A. Henty

Tom and Peter, finding that no one paid any attention to them, sat, quietly down by the guard-house.

In a few minutes the French colonel came down. "Where are those boys?" he exclaimed hastily. There was quite a crowd of soldiers round the house, for the news of the return of General Reynier's wife and child had circulated rapidly and created quite an excitement. "Where are those boys?" he shouted again.

The sergeant of the guard came forward.

"I had no orders to keep them prisoners, sir," he said in an apologetic tone, for he had not noticed the boys, and thought that he was going to get into a scrape for not detaining them; but he was interrupted by one of the soldiers who had heard the question, bringing them forward.

To the astonishment of the soldiers, the colonel rushed forward, and, with a Frenchman's enthusiasm, actually kissed them. "Mes braves garçons!" he exclaimed. "Mes braves garçons! Look you, all of you," he exclaimed to the soldiers, "you see these boys, they are heroes, they have saved, at the risk of their own lives, mark you, General Reynier's wife and daughter; they have braved the fury of that accursed Nunez and his band, and have brought them out from that den of wolves." And then, in excited tones, he described the scene as he had heard it from Madame Reynier.

At this relation the enthusiasm of the French soldiers broke out in a chorus of cheers and excited exclamations. The men crowded round the boys, shook them by the hands, patted them on the back, and in a hundred strange oaths vowed an eternal friendship for them.

After a minute or two, the colonel raised his hand for silence. "Look you," he said to the men. "You can imagine that, after what these boys have done, their life is not safe for a moment. This accursed Nunez will dog them and have them assassinated if he can. So I leave them to you; you will take care of them, my children, will you not?"

A chorus of assurances was the reply, and the boys found themselves as it were adopted into the regiment. The soldiers could not do enough for them, but, as neither party understood the other's language, the intercourse did not make much progress. They had, however, real difficulty in refusing the innumerable offers of a glass of wine or brandy made to them by every group of soldiers as they moved about through the village.

The boys felt that their position was a false one; and although, in point of fact, they had no report to make upon the regiment, still the possibility that if discovered they might be thought to have been acting as spies on men who treated them with so much friendliness was repugnant to them. However, their stay was not to be prolonged, for the regiment had already been stationed for a month at the village, and was to be relieved by another expected hourly from France, and was then to go on to Madrid. This they learned from one of the soldiers who could speak a few words of Spanish.

It was upon the third day after their arrival that the expected regiment came in, and next morning the boys started soon after daybreak with their friends. They had not seen Madame Reynier during their stay in the village, for she was laid up with a sharp attack of illness after the excitement she had gone through. She was still far from fit to travel, but she insisted on going on, and a quantity of straw was accordingly laid in a cart, pillows and cushions were heaped on this, and an awning was arranged above to keep off the sun. The regiment had taken on the transport animals which had come in with the baggage of the troops the night before; hence the mule drivers and other followers were all strangers. The boys were marching beside the regiment, talking with one of the sergeants who had been previously for two years in Spain, and spoke a little Spanish, when the colonel, who had been riding alongside Madame Reynier, told them as he passed on to the head of the regiment, that she wished to speak to them.