Ginger's high spirits were infectious, and the group of which Kenneth and Harry formed a part chatted and laughed away the afternoon.
Just before ten o'clock they were arranging their simple beds on the frames when a chorus of yells, cat-calls, whistles, and other discordant noises caused them to look around the hall. Stoneway had just made his appearance. It was a different Stoneway. The brown beard was gone, the long and flourishing moustache had been clipped to bristly stiffness, revealing heavy lips and a full round chin. The man bore his uproarious greeting with a defiant glare, and only looked annoyed when Ginger shouted:
"Smart, ain't he? Doesn't look so much like a blinky German, does he?"
The bugle sounded the Last Post, the electric light was switched off, and the five hundred men of the 17th Rutland Light Infantry clambered into their bunks and sought repose.
CHAPTER IV
THREE ROUNDS
At six o'clock next morning sergeant-majors and corporals went round the hall stirring up the sleepers. There were groans and grumbles, but the men turned out, and there was a general dash for the washing basins--one among twenty men--and a free fight for the razors. Our two friends had brought their own safeties and pocket mirrors, and when they had finished operating upon their downy cheeks there was a competition among their new messmates for the loan of those indispensable articles.
"Your bristles will ruin a blade in no time, Ginger," said Harry, as he handed over the razor, somewhat ruefully.
"Perseverance, that's all you want," replied Ginger, through the lather. "Yours 'll be as hard as mine in time."
At half-past six each man seized a mug and rushed off to the cook-house across the yard for cocoa. They sat about the hall, swilling the morning beverage, grumbling at the blankets, asking one another who'd be a soldier; then they rubbed up their boots and made their beds, and were ready for the seven o'clock parade.