“Cookers. Second Southdown Infantry Brigade,” answered Rutton’s voice. “I say that Colonel of yours is a brick.”
“Oh, to hell with you and your cookers,” said Peter, and plodded on again. He had been sweating: now the perspiration began to dry. Also the black rage was on him again. He heard the jingle of bits in the darkness; somebody shouted “Halt!” A shell, out of sight, crashed to ground. Then somebody called out from his horse, “I say, you with the cigar?”
“Yes,” answered Peter.
“Can you tell me where I am?”
“Who are you?”
“Southdown Yeomanry.”
Peter gave the information; and added, “I should get out of this if I were you. It’s no place for Cavalry.”
Asked the somebody, “Have I your permission to retire, sir?”
And Peter Jameson, Adjutant of the 4th Southdown Brigade, who had as much right to order Yeomanry out of action as Driver Jelks, said—without a quiver in his voice—“You have”; listened, cigar in mouth, to the somebody’s “Walk—March,” to the jingle of bits and the creak of accoutrements; saw the last file of that squadron disappear into the darkness.
“Discipline be sugared,” thought P.J. “A child could see that this isn’t the place for Divisional Cavalry.”