"Look alive, my lads!" said Sergeant Sparks, "and get whatever you can. Hallo!" he added; "they've begun, have they?"
Jack had heard something like the sound of the swift flight of a swallow far overhead, but he did not understand its significance until, a moment later, the sound was repeated, and on the ground in front of him there suddenly appeared a mark, as though some one had struck the sand with the point of an invisible stick, leaving behind a short, deep groove, and causing a handful of dust to spring into the air. Far away on the distant hillside was a tiny puff of smoke, and as he looked the faint pop of the rifle reached his ear. Then the truth dawned on him: this was his baptism of fire—a long-range fire, to be sure, but none the less deadly if the bullet found its billet!
He caught up a fragment of rock, and carried it to where the wall was to be constructed. Men were hurrying to and fro all around him, and yet suddenly he seemed to feel himself alone, the sole mark for the enemy's fire; again that z—st overhead, and a cold chill ran down his back. He shut his teeth, and, with a careless air, strode off for a fresh load. He had not gone twenty yards when another shot ricochetted off a stone, and flew up into the air with a shrill chirrup. Jack winced and shivered. It was no good, however well he might conceal the fact from others—the fear of death was on him; it was impossible to deceive his own heart. A fresh terror now seized him, coupled with a sense of shame. He was the fellow who had always expressed a wish to be a soldier, and go on active service; and now, before the first feeble spitting of the enemy's fire, all his courage was ebbing away. What if his comrades should notice that his limbs trembled and his voice was shaky? What if, when the advance was made, his nerve should fail him altogether, and he should turn to run?
With dogged energy he pursued his task, hardly noticing what was going on around him. For the fourth time he was approaching the zareba, when a comrade, a dozen yards in front, stumbled forward and sank down upon the ground. There was no cry, no frantic leap into the air, yet it was sufficiently horrible. Jack felt sick, and his teeth chattered; he had never before seen a man hit, and it was his first experience of the sacrifice of human flesh and blood. At the same moment, like a clap of thunder, one of the screw-guns was discharged; the droning whizz of the shell grew fainter and fainter—a pause—and then the boom of its explosion was returned in a muffled echo from the distant hillside.
A couple of men hurried forward and raised their wounded comrade. Jack turned away his eyes, and immediately they encountered a rather different spectacle.
A young subaltern, with a short brier pipe in his mouth, and without a hair on his face, was making a playful pretence of dropping a huge boulder on to the toes of the lieutenant of Jack's detachment.
"Hold the ball—no side!" said Mr. Lawson facetiously. "Look here, Mostyn, you beggar! I've just spotted a fine rock, only it's too big for one to carry. Come and help to bring it in; it's a chance for you to distinguish yourself. Look sharp! or some of the Tommies will have bagged it."
Something in this speech, and the careless, happy-go-lucky way in which it was uttered, seemed to revive Jack's spirits. Mr. Lawson recognized and spoke to him as he passed.
"Well, Fenleigh, they've begun to shake the pepper-box at us; but it'll be our turn to-morrow."
There was nothing in the remark itself, but there was something in the cheery tone and manly face of the speaker; something that brought fresh courage to the soldier's heart, and filled it with a sudden determination to emulate the example of his leader.