“Get along wid ye, it’s Lord Mayor of London ye ought to be. Why, man, it’s fighting and not ating ye’ve come out here for.”
“Well, I got plenty of that between Abu Klea and this, anyway,” replied Tarrant. “A bullet went through my water-bottle early on the eighteenth, and I was without a drop for hours. I believe I have worse luck than anybody.”
“Worse luck than anybody, you ungrateful beggar!” cried Smith.
“And how about Richardson, your rear rank man, who got the same bullet which spoilt your bottle into his body, and died in pain that evening? I suppose you would rather his water-bottle had been hit and your inwards!”
Tarrant busied himself in stuffing and lighting his pipe, and made no reply.
“Well, for my part, I hope we shall have a cut in at Matammeh to-morrow,” said Kavanagh, “so as to get on up the river at once.”
“Aye, I hope we may,” echoed half a dozen voices in chorus.
“Gordon and the poor chaps with him must be pretty well sick of waiting to be relieved, hemmed in all the time by those blood-thirsty savages.”
“Eh, but it must have been bad last March, when our people won the victory at Tamai, and they thought at Khartoum that they were coming across to them,” said Macintosh.
“And then to hear they had gone awa again, and left them without a bit of help but themselves.”