"Not quite lately. He went off towards the Brunswickers, I think. Some of those fellows seem to revel in this sort of thing."
"The younger ones don't like it."
The surgeon, having finished his work on the Major's arm, bustled away, and the Major, drawing his tunic on again, said, with a grave look: "What do you make of it?"
Audley returned the look. "Pretty black."
The Major nodded. He buttoned up his coat, and said: "We don't see much of it here, you know. Nothing but smoke and this damned cavalry. One of the artillery fellows who took cover in our square during the last charge said he thought it was all over with us."
"Not it! We shall win through!"
"Oh, not a doubt! But damme, if ever I saw anything like this cavalry affair! Look at them, riding round and round! Makes you feel giddy to watch them." He glanced round the square, and sighed. "God, my poor regiment!" He saw a slight stir taking place in one of the ranks, and hurried off towards the wall of red shouting: "Close up, there! Stand fast, my lads! We'll soon have them over the hill!"
The inside of the square was like a hospital, with wounded men lying all over the ground among the ammunition boxes and the debris of accoutrements. Those of the doctors attached to the regiment who had not gone to the rear were busy with bandages and sticking plaster, but there was very little they could do to ease the sufferings of the worse cases. From time to time, a man fell in the ranks, and crawled between the legs of his comrades into the square. The dead lay among the living, some with limbs twisted in a last agony, and sightless eyes glaring up at the chasing clouds; others as though asleep, their eyelids mercifully closed, and their heads pillowed on their arms.
Almost at Audley's feet, a boy lay in a sticky pool of his own blood. He looked very young; there was a faint smile on his dead lips, and one hand lay palm upwards on the ground, the fingers curling inwards in an oddly pathetic gesture. Audley was looking down at him when he heard his name feebly called. He turned his head and saw Lord Harry Alastair not far from him, lying on the ground, propped up by knapsacks.
He stepped over the dead boy at his feet, and went to Harry, and dropped on his knee beside him. "Harry! Are you badly hurt?"