“I was afraid you would say so, sir. But Drew Lennox and I have always been regular chums together, and it seems horrible to settle down quietly here in safety and do nothing to try and find him.”
“It does, my dear sir; but we soldiers have to make sacrifices in the cause of duty.”
“Yes, sir; but we’ve had a splendid bit of luck since last night. Can’t you strain a point?”
The colonel smiled.
“Well, it’s hardly fair to call it luck, Dickenson,” he said. “I think some of it’s due to good management. Eh?”
“Yes, sir; you are quite right.”
“Well there, then, if you’ll promise me to run no risks with the lads, and return if you find the enemy still at the kopje, I’ll give you leave to take a sergeant and a couple of men and go.”
Dickenson looked pleased and yet disappointed.
“We might find him somewhere near, sir, even if the Boers are there,” he said.
“In the darkness of a moonless night, with men on the qui vive ready to fire at the slightest sound?”