CHAPTER II
Homeless, ragged and tanned,
Under the changeful sky;
Who so free in the land?
Who so contented as I?.
THE VAGABOND
The long-drawn-out, sweet notes of "Reveille" rang out in the frosty dawn. Reg. No. —— Const George Redmond, engaged at that moment in pulling on his "fatigue-slacks" hummed the trumpet-call's time-honoured vocal parody—
"I sold a cow, I sold a cow, an' bought a donk-ee—' Oh—what—a silly old sot you were!"
The room buzzed like a drowsy hive with hastily dressing men. Breathing hotly on the frosted window-pane next his cot, George rubbed a clear patch and glued his eye to it. The blizzard had died out during the night leaving the snow-drifted landscape frosty, still and clear. A rapidly widening strip of blended rose and pale turquoise on the eastern horizon gave promise of a fine day.
He turned away with a contented sigh and, descending the stairs, fell in with the rest of the fur-coated, moccasined men on "Morning Stable Parade."
Three hours later, breakfast despatched, blankets rolled and kit and dunnage bags packed, he received a curt summons from the sergeant-major to attend the Orderly-room. To the brisk word of command he was "quick-marched" "left-wheeled," and "halted" at "attention" before the desk of the Officer Commanding L. Division.
"Constable Redmond, Sir!" announced the deep-throated, rumbling bass of the sergeant-major; and for some seconds George gazed at the silvery hair and wide bowed shoulders of the seated figure in front of him, who continued his perusal of some type-written sheets of foolscap, as if unaware of any interruption. Elsewhere have the kindly personality and eccentricities of Captain Richard Bargrave been described; "but that," as Kipling says, "is another story."
Presently the papers were cast aside, the bowed shoulders in the splendidly-cut blue-serge uniform squared back in the chair, and Redmond found himself being scrutinized intently by the all-familiar bronzed old aristocratic countenance, with its sweeping fair moustache. Involuntarily he stiffened, though his eyes, momentarily overpowered by the intensity of that keen gaze, strayed to the level of his superior's breast and focussed themselves upon two campaign ribbons there, "North-West Rebellion" and "Ashantee" decorations.
Suddenly the thin, high, cultured voice addressed him—whimsically—sarcastic but not altogether unkindly: