[Chapter 17]: Stockades And War Camps.
"Well, Hallett, here we are," Lisle said the next morning, "and thank God neither of us is touched, except perhaps by a few slugs. Of these, however, I dare say the surgeon will rid us this morning. It has been a big affair and, if we live to a hundred years, we are not likely to go through such another."
"I wish you would not be so confoundedly cheerful," Hallett said, gloomily; "we have got to go down again, and the Kokofu are to be dealt with. We shall probably have half a dozen more battles. The rain, too, shows no signs of giving up, and we shall have to tramp through swamps innumerable, ford countless rivers and, I dare say, be short of food again before we have done. As to going through such work again, my papers will be sent in at the first hint that I am likely to have to take part in it."
"All of which means, Hallett, that just at the present moment a reaction has set in; and I will guarantee that, if you had a thoroughly good breakfast, and finished it off with a pint of champagne, you would see matters in a different light, altogether."
"Don't talk of such things," Hallett said, feebly; "it is a dream, a mere fantasy. It doesn't seem to me, at present, a possibility that such a meal could fall to my lot.
"Look at me, look at my wasted figure! I weighed nearly fourteen stone, when we started; I doubt whether I weigh ten, now."
"All the better, Hallett. When I first saw you, on shore at Liverpool, I said to myself that you were as fat as a pig.
"'He would be a fine-looking young fellow,' I said, 'if he could get some of it off. I suppose it is good living and idleness that has done it.'"
Hallett laughed.
"Well, perhaps I need not grumble at that; but the worst of it is that I have always heard that, when a fellow loses on active service, he is sure to make it up again, and perhaps a stone more, after it is over."