"Now, where have you been?" asked Carstairs.
"Yes, where have you been?" asked Wharton.
"I've been taking a couple of pleasure trips with my friend, Lannes," replied John. "Between trips I was a prisoner of the Germans, and I've seen a lot of the great battle. Has the British army suffered much?"
A shade flitted over the face of Carstairs as he replied:
"We haven't been shot up so much since Waterloo. It's been appalling. For days and nights we've been fighting and marching. Whenever we stopped even for a moment we fell on the ground and were asleep before we touched it. Half the fellows I knew have been killed. I think as long as I live I'll hear the drumming of those guns in my ears, and, confound 'em, I still hear 'em in reality now. If you turn your attention to it you can hear the confounded business quite plainly! But what I do know, Scott, is that we've been winning! I don't know where I am and I haven't a clear idea of what I've been doing all the time, but as sure as we're in France the victory is ours."
"But won by the French chiefly" John could not keep from saying.
"Quite true. Our own army is not large, but it has done as much per man."
"And the moral support," added John. "The French have felt the presence of a friend, a friend, too, who in six months will be ten times as strong as he is now."
"Where is Lannes?" asked Wharton.
"He's got your job, Wharton," replied John with a smile. "He's Envoy Extraordinary and Bearer of Messages concerning Life and Death between the armies. As soon as he landed he went directly to the British commander, and they're now conferring in a tent. That will never happen to you. You will never be closeted with the leader of a great army."