“Oh, time and again,” Burgard laughed. “We’ve all had our E.C. turn.”
“Doesn’t the chopping and changing upset the men?”
“It takes something to upset the Guard. Besides, they’re all in the game together. They give each other a fair show you may be sure.”
“That’s true,” said Matthews. “When I went to N’Gami with my—with the half-company,” he sighed, “they helped me all they knew. But it’s a gift—handling men. I found that out.”
“I know you did,” said Burgard softly. “But you found it out in time, which is the great thing. You see,” he turned to me, “with our limited strength we can’t afford to have a single man who isn’t more than up to any duty—in reason. Don’t you be led away by what you saw at Trials just now. The Volunteers and the Militia have all the monkey-tricks of the trade—such as mounting and dismounting guns, and making fancy scores and doing record marches; but they need a lot of working up before they can pull their weight in the boat.”
There was a knock at the door. A note was handed in. Burgard read it and smiled.
“Bayley wants to know if you’d care to come with us to the Park and see the kids. It’s only a Saturday afternoon walk-round before the taxpayer…. Very good. If you’ll press the button we’ll try to do the rest.”
He led me by two flights of stairs up an iron stairway that gave on a platform, not unlike a ship’s bridge, immediately above the barrelled glass roof of the riding-school. Through a ribbed ventilator I could see B Company far below watching some men who chased sheep. Burgard unlocked a glass-fronted fire-alarm arrangement flanked with dials and speaking-tubes, and bade me press the centre button.
Next moment I should have fallen through the riding-school roof if he had not caught me; for the huge building below my feet thrilled to the multiplied purring of electric bells. The men in the school vanished like minnows before a shadow, and above the stamp of booted feet on staircases I heard the neighing of many horses.
“What in the world have I done?” I gasped.