“You answer it, Jameson.”
Peter picked up the receiver; heard the usual: “Brigade Major Seventh Don Ack wishes to speak to the Adjutant.” “You’re through, sir.” Then the usual quiet voice, “Oh, is that you, Jameson? About tonight, we want you to fire shrapnel on those cross-roads. Same as. . . . Here, half-a-minute. . . . Hang on, will you? . . .” A long pause. “Is your Colonel there? Do you mind asking him to speak?”
“They want you, sir,” said Peter across the room.
“I guessed as much.” Stark came over; took the instrument.
The four men heard him say: “It can’t be done under four hours. . . .” Pause. “Yes, just like them, isn’t it? . . . Le Rutoire Farm. . . . All right. . . . You might send those orders along, will you? . . . And I’m one gun short.” Then he put the receiver back on the shelf; turned round; and remarked with a peculiar smile: “Well, gentlemen, we’re for it this time!”
§ 2
Peter Jameson was not a man who gave either friendship or admiration lightly. His feelings for Colonel Stark had hitherto been tolerant rather than friendly, critical rather than admiring. The little red man had stood to his Adjutant for a type: the “Regular soldier”—a person of limited outlook, good at his job (and why not, after twenty years of it?), irascible, rather inclined to bother himself over-much with detail, taking the simple business of commanding an Artillery Brigade as seriously as if it had been the management of a complicated commercial concern. . . .
But on the night of September the 25th, even that stickler for organization and efficiency, P.J., had to acknowledge himself the Weasel’s inferior.
The problem confronting the commander of the 4th Southdown Brigade comprised, briefly, the assembling of six hundred men, five hundred horses, and innumerable vehicles, scattered over at least seven miles of ground, the moving of them forward—provisioned, munitioned, and if possible without casualties—over unexplored country to the support of an infantry whose whereabouts had not been ascertained. And all this had to be accomplished through officers mostly ignorant of active service, by weary men, under incessant shell-fire and in pitch darkness. Moreover—as the only definite information consisted of “You will report yourself at once for orders to G.O.C. 2nd Southdown Infantry Brigade” at farm three miles away—arrangements to meet all contingencies had to be made instanter.