“’Tain’t no good, sir. I can’t see ’im. ’E’s ’idin’ somewhere down ’ill.”
Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. “Shall I try to get ’im, sir?” said he.
“No,” was the answer. “Lie down. I won’t have the whole camp shooting all round the clock. Tell him to go and pot his friends.”
Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his head under the tent wall, he called, as a ’bus conductor calls in a block, “’Igher up, there! ’Igher up!”
The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a mistake, went off to worry his own regiment half a mile away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis were very angry with him for disgracing their colors.
“An’ that’s all right,” said Ortheris, withdrawing his head as he heard the hiccough of the Sniders in the distance. “S’elp me Gawd, tho’, that man’s not fit to live—messin’ with my beauty-sleep this way.”
“Go out and shoot him in the morning, then,” said the subaltern incautiously. “Silence in the tents now. Get your rest, men.”
Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in two minutes there was no sound except the rain on the canvas and the all-embracing and elemental snoring of Learoyd.
The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and for a week had been waiting for a flying column to make connection. The nightly rounds of the deserter and his friends had become a nuisance.
In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sunshine and cleaned their grimy accoutrements. The native regiment was to take its turn of road-making that day while the Old Regiment loafed.