Sheldrake was too ill or weary to attend closely to his own duties, and the moment the evening meal was over, he desired the sergeant of the picquet to 'go round the advanced sentries.'
The sergeant, a young and slender man, and who was no other than Florian, touched the barrel of his rifle and departed on his mission—to visit the sentinels in rotation by the river bank, and see that they were in communication with those of the picquets on the right and left.
The scenery around was savage and desolate; long feathery grass covered the veldt for miles upon miles. The chief features in it were some blue gum trees, and on a koppie, or little eminence, the deserted ruins of a Boer farm under the shadow of a clump of eucalyptus trees; and in the foreground were some bustards and blue Kaffir cranes by the river bank.
Short service and disease had given Florian rapid promotion; for our soldiers, if brave, had no longer the power of manly endurance of their predecessors under the old system. According to General Crealock, the extreme youth of our soldiers in South Africa rendered their powers for toil very small; while the Naval Brigade, composed of older men, had scarcely ever a man in hospital. The Zulu campaign was a very trying one; there were the nightly entrenchments, the picquet duty amid high grass, and the absence of all confidence that discipline and that long mutual knowledge of each other give in the ranks. He added most emphatically that our younger soldiers were unfit for European campaigning; that half the First Division were 'sick;' there were always some 200 weak lads in hospital, 'crawling about like sick flies,' and, like him, every officer was dead against the short-service system.
The face of our young sergeant was handsome as ever; but it was strangely altered since late events had come to pass. There was a haggard and worn look in the features, particularly in the eyes. The latter looked feverish and dim—their brightness less at times, while a shadow seemed below them.
Florian having, as he now deemed, no right to the name of Melfort, or even that of MacIan, had enlisted under the latter name, as that by which he had been known from infancy, lest he might make a false attestation. The name of Gyle he shrank from, even if it was his—which at times he doubted! His regiment was the brave old 24th, or Second Warwickshire, which had been raised in the eventful year 1689 by Sir Edward Dering, Bart, of Surrenden-Dering, head of one of the few undoubted Saxon families in England, and it was afterwards commanded in 1695 by Louis, Marquis de Puizar.
Second to none in the annals of war during the reigns of Anne and the early Georges, the 24th in later times served with valour at the first capture of the Cape of Good Hope, in the old Egyptian campaign, in the wars of Spain and India, and now they were once again to cover themselves with a somewhat clouded and desperate glory in conflict with the gallant Zulus.
Florian in his new career found himself occasionally among a somewhat mixed and rough lot—the raw, weedy soldiers of the new disastrous system—but there were many who were of a better type; and the thought of Dulcie Carlyon—the only friend he had in the world, the only human creature who loved him—kept him free from the temptations and evil habits of the former; and he strove to live a steady, pure, and brave life, that he might yet be worthy of her, and give her no cause to blush for him.
He got through his drilling as quickly as he could, and soon discovered that the sooner a soldier takes his place in the ranks the better for himself. He found that though many of his comrades were noisy, talkative, and quarrelsome, that the English soldier quicker than any other discovers and appreciates a gentleman. His officers soon learned to appreciate him too, and hence the rapidity with which he won his three chevrons, and Mr. Sheldrake felt that, young though he was, he could trust Florian to go round the sentinels.
Each was at his post, and the attention of each increased as the gloom after sunset deepened, for none knew who or what might be approaching stealthily and unseen among the long wavy grass and mossy dongas that yawned amid the country in front.