Chapter Nineteen.
Another Breakdown.
Punch heard the voices too, and he reached out and felt for his comrade’s hand.
“What is it?” he whispered. “Have they won? Not going to shoot me, are they?”
“No, no,” said Pen, “but”—and he dropped his voice—“I think we are all going on.”
He was quite right, and all through that night the slow business of setting a division on the march was under way, and the long, long train of baggage wagons drawn by the little wiry mules of the country began to move.
The ambulance train followed, with its terrible burden heavily increased with the results of the late engagement, while as before—thanks to the service he had been able to render—Pen was able to accompany the heavily laden wagon in which Punch lay.
“So we were beaten,” said the boy sadly—as the wheels of the lumbering vehicle creaked loudly, for the route was rough and stony—and Pen nodded.