Safe at Last.
“Ha!” ejaculated Dickenson, with a sigh of relief, and he turned away to creep to where Lennox lay, finding him still plunged in the same state of stupor.
“One ought to lay him in the shade,” he thought; but there was very little that he could do beyond drawing a few pieces of the thorn bush together to hang over his face. He then took out his handkerchief to lay over the bush, but hastily snatched it away again. “Bah!” he muttered. “It’s like making a white bull’s-eye for them to fire at.”
Then he crept back to his position, with the bullets still whizzing overhead or striking up the dust, and he almost wondered that no one had been hit.
“I hope Mr Lennox is better, sir,” said the sergeant respectfully.
“I see no difference, sergeant. But what does that mean?”
“What we used to call ‘stalking horse,’ sir, down in the Essex marshes. Creeping up under the shelter of their mounts.”
“Then they are getting nearer?”
“Yes, sir. Don’t you think we might begin to pay them back? We could hit their ponies if we couldn’t hit them.”
“Yes, sergeant, soon,” replied the young officer, carefully scanning the enemy’s approach; “but I think I’d let them get a hundred yards, or even two, nearer before we begin. The business is simplified.”