The three men marched off at once in the direction pointed out, and Ben stopped back for a moment or two to whisper to Roy, in a quick, vexed manner—
“Don’t go on saying we’ll do this next, or we’ll do that next, sir, as if you was asking a favour of us. You’re captain and castellan, as they calls him. You’re governor and everything, and you’ve got to order us to do things sharp, short, and strong.”
“But I don’t want to bully you all, Ben,” cried Roy.
“Nobody wants you to, sir. You can’t be bullying a man when you’re ordering him sharply to do what’s right. Of course, if you ask us in your civil way to do a thing, we shall do it, but it aren’t correct.”
“I’ll try differently, Ben.”
“Sergeant, sir!”
“Ser-geant,” said Roy. “But it’s all so new yet, I can’t quite realise it. And, of course, I’m so young to be ordering big men about.”
“You’ve the right to do it, sir, and that’s everything. Now, just suppose the enemy was in front playing up ruination and destruction, and your father was going to charge ’em with his regiment of tough dragoons, do you think he’d say, ‘Now, my men, I want you to—or I’d like you to attack those rapscallions yonder’? Not he. He’d just say a word to the trumpeter, there’d be a note or two blown, and away we’d go at a walk; another blast, and we should trot; then another, and away we should be at ’em like a whirlwind, and scatter ’em like leaves. You must learn to order us, sir, sharply. Mind, sir, it’s must!”
“Very well,” said Roy.
“Don’t you be afraid, sir; let us have your order sharp, whatever it is, and we’ll do it.”