"Oh!--er--oui, Monsieur. Oh, please let us ... Er--wasn't that running dreadful this morning?" ...
"I say, Monsieur Rupaire, do you think we shall have the same 'breakfast' every morning?" put in Feodor Kyrilovitch. "It'll be the death of my brother here, if we do. He never was a runner."
"'Fraid so, during recruits' course," replied Rupert, and added: "I noticed a great difference between you and your brother."
"Oh, it's only just in that respect," was the reply. "I've always been better winded than he.... Illness when he was a kid.... Lungs not over strong...."
Even as he had prophesied, an Orderly-Sergeant swooped down upon them as the potato-fatigue finished, and, while the old Legionaries somehow melted into thin air and vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision, the recruits were captured and commandeered for a barrack-scavenging corvée which kept them hard at work until it was time to fall in for "theory."
This Rupert discovered to be instruction in recognition of badges of rank, and, later, in every sort and kind of rule and regulation; in musketry, tactics, training and the principles and theory of drill, entrenchment, scouting, skirmishing, and every other branch of military education.
At two o'clock, drill began again, and lasted until four, at which hour Monsieur le Médicin-Major held the medical examination, the idea of which seemed so disturbing to Mikhail Kyrilovitch. It proved to be the merest formality--a glance, a question, a caution against excess, and the recruits were passed and certified as bon pour le service at the rate of twenty to the quarter-hour. They were, moreover, free for the remainder of the day (provided they escaped all victim-hunting Non-coms., in search of corvée-parties) with the exception of such hours as might be necessary for labours of astiquage and the lavabo.
On returning to the chambrée, Rupert found his friend John Bull awaiting him.
"Well, Rupert," he cried cheerily, "what sort of a day have you had? Tired? We'll get 'soupe' again shortly. I'll take you to the lavabo afterwards, and show you the ropes. Got to have your white kit, arms and accoutrements all klim-bim, as the Germans say, before you dress and go out, or else you'll have to do it in the dark."
"Yes, thanks," replied Rupert. "I'll get straight first. I hate 'spit and polish' after Lights Out. What'll the next meal be?"