“Poor little nipper. All right, my gal; you’ll bring him round.”
Tom had ceased sniffing and had turned to give a long stare at the men grouped round the pot, to see that they had done eating and were lighting their pipes.
“Might ha’ arxed a pore chap to have had a bit, corporal,” he said.
“Ay, we might, lad; but then you see we was all so hungry we mightn’t, and you’re only a boy.”
“Yes, that’s it,” grumbled Tom, wrenching his bugle round and giving it a vicious polish with his sleeve. “Allus the same; on’y a boy; just as if I could help that!”
“And such a hungry sort o’ boy; holler all through. It’s a waste to give you good food. That there stoo was evvinly.”
Joe turned away from Tom’s sour puckered face, to bend over the insensible little patient with a look full of pity, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I should just liked to have been there, missus, with my bay’net fixed when they cut that little fellow down. Here, I’ll sit and have a pipe and keep the flies off him, while you go and pick a bit. The boys wouldn’t touch a morsel till I’d put aside some for you and Tom.”
That night the 200th was still marching on where they were to camp in the mountains, while on a rough kind of litter formed of a long basket strapped upon the back of a mule, with a couple of great-coats and a blanket for bed, lay the poor child whose life Mrs Beane was trying to save.
It was a long and a weary forced march, for scouts had brought in news which made the officers hope to come in touch of the retreating army before morning, for the news had spread, and during the night the Colonel and officers found opportunities for coming and asking Mother Beane about her little patient.