"You call this a muster, do you?"
The contingent complement gathers round the door, waiting. At first whispering goes on, then voices are raised, there is jest and laughter. Suddenly a sub-officer leaves the sanctum.
"Stop this awful noise, will you! One can't hear oneself speak. Besides, what do you want here, lounging about the door? Off you go!"
We disappear, though not for long. Within a very few minutes an orderly is seen hurrying about and shouting—
"Quick! You are wanted at the office."
The sub-officer who has just dismissed us from the doorstep greets us with the words—
"Come, now, how is it that the men of the contingent complement are never to be found? Has some one to come and take you by the hand?"
Rain has been falling ever since the previous day. Humes is now a marsh; the river overflows its banks.
Tuesday, 18th August.