“There is no storm behind Ada’s calm,” said Lady Stratclyffe, “though when she found that the head and foot-pieces of two thousand iron bedsteads sent out from England in our transport The Realm for use in the Barrack Hospital here, had been buried under mountains of shot and empty shell, destined for the batteries of Balaklava, she was certainly not complimentary to the contractor who supplied, and the agent who undertook to pack and ship them! For the shot and shell must be unloaded at Balaklava before Ada can receive the missing parts of the beds. And that may mean a matter of weeks: From the windows of the Embassy I saw the transport pass this morning—a magnificent vessel!”
He asked:
“You are speaking of The Realm?” Adding, as she signified assent: “It was to her I referred just now when I said that all stores and clothing needed by the Army were even now on their way up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea. Your bungling agent is a well-known middleman between Government and its purveyors. Has a son, by the way, for whom he got a commission in the Guards, and who has good blood in him—however he may have come by it! Was mentioned in Dispatches from Headquarters after the Alma. Not bad for a callow Ensign, it appears to me!”
“Do tell me what he has done!” she begged. “I have missed so much that has been reported!”
“I’ll do better than tell you. You shall hear the story from his company Captain, Caddisbroke!”
The hirsute and bandaged wearer of a superlatively shabby red coat which had formed the center of a group gathered near the saloon-cabin companion came limping on a crutch across the deck, followed by the silken swish of feminine skirts and the creak of masculine boots.
“You called me, Lord Cardillon?”
“To tell Lady Stratclyffe what young Jowell said at Alma to the dandy False Retreat in the Hussar jacket and red forage-cap.”
A pretty woman with an infantile lisp wanted firtht to know what wath a Faith Retreat? The crutched newcomer answered, exchanging a glance with the Brigadier:
“We’re beginning to get used to ’em, Madame de Bessarine, in moments of crisis. In fact, they’re a feature of this campaign. They’re mounted officers with airs of authority, and Staff epaulets and brassards as correct as their English accent. Buglers with ’em too, up in all our calls—particularly numbers Four and Seven.... And when the Light Division were beginning to reckon with the six Vladimir battalions, the ‘Retire’ was sounded, and down they came pell-mell, officers and men, smack into the middle of the White Tufts, who were coming on towards the river in first-class form.... They disordered their center, and jumbled the Bearskins Plain, who were advancing a little to the right of ’em. And in the confusion the Ruskis broke in on their center and left—and tried to take the Colors, and there was trouble. So Sir Bayard Baynes rode back to us—and you may guess we were well in the background, having Royalty to keep in a bandbox!—and suggested an onward movement. And the Duke of Bambridge gave in. And we came up at the double, hurraying like mad to have got the chance of a crack at ’em!—and formed on the left of the White Tufts; and had no sooner begun to pound the two great columns of gray coats into smithereens—the White Tufts file-firing while we poured volleys in—than up comes a dandy False Retreat riding with an order. ‘The Duke requests the Cut Red Feathers to retire without delay!’ And the bugler-blackguard blew—and our bugles sounded down the line—and the men called out ‘No, no!’ And this young Jowell—acting as Lieutenant for his half-company in place of Ardenmore killed—calls out—and I heard him from the ditch I’d tumbled into when they shot me: ‘The Duke never gave that order—and I’m dam’ if I’ll obey it!—I’m blest if I do, so there!’ And when His Royal Highness heard it, he was uncommonly tickled—and said they should hear it at home!”