“Well, but oughtn’t the Colonel to have sent out a despatch or two telling the General how we are fixed?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know,” said Denham sourly. “I’m only a subaltern—a bit of machinery that is wound up sometimes by my superior officers, and then I turn round till I’m stopped. Subalterns are not expected to have any brains, or to think for themselves.”
“Now you are exaggerating,” I said.
“Not a bit of it, my little man. But I know what I should have done if I had been chief.”
“What’s that?”
“Sent out a smart fellow who could track and ride.”
“With a despatch for the General?”
“No; a message that couldn’t fall into the enemy’s hands. I’d have gone like a shot.”
“You couldn’t send yourself,” I said dryly.
“Eh? What do you mean?”