The Drummer's Coat

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

"And I will stay with the children," said Colonel George, "for I want to make friends again."

Dick and Elsie were a little shy at being left alone with a stranger; but before he could say a word to them the Corporal appeared leading the pony towards the stable. He saluted Colonel Fitzdenys, and was going on, but the Colonel at once called to him by name and shook his hand warmly, while the Corporal beamed with pleasure, and said how glad he was to see his honour returned in good health.

"Oh! do you know the Corporal?" asked Dick timidly.

"Know the Corporal?" said Colonel George. "I should think I did know him, and a fine, brave fellow he is. Why, he saved my life once, he and your father. I was lieutenant in your father's troop, and at the very first skirmish in which we were engaged in the war, I was hit here, in the shoulder, so that I could not hold my reins. My horse ran away with me, right into the middle of the French, and there was not another horse in the regiment that could catch him, except your father's horse, Billy Pitt. But he came galloping after me as hard as he could ride, and caught him; and Brimacott, who was his servant, followed as fast as he could, and between them they brought me back from the middle of the enemy, or perhaps I shouldn't be here now. So I have good reason to remember Brimacott and Billy Pitt. Do you remember Billy Pitt?"

"He's here in the stable," said both the children in a breath.

"Then let us go and see Billy Pitt, for he's a very old friend of mine," said the Colonel, and away he walked to the stable with the children following him. The old horse seemed to know him, for he pricked his ears and kept nuzzling with his nose all over the Colonel's coat, until he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out an apple for him. "Look there," said the Colonel, passing his hand along the scar on the horse's neck. "The time came for Billy to get wounded and for me to look after him, as he had saved me. That was at Salamanca." He stopped for a minute and laid his hands on the children's shoulders. "Poor Billy had lost his master, you know, and came galloping up to me with his saddle empty, for he knew my horse well. And then he remained by my side, moving when I moved and stopping when I stopped, and charging with us when we charged. He came out of the fight with this cut on his neck. Poor Brimacott was badly wounded in the leg, and there was no one to look after the old horse, so I sewed up Billy's wound myself and kept him. He was well long before the Corporal—I made him corporal, you know—and, indeed, poor Brimacott was never fit for rough work again, so when he went home I sent Billy with him."

Then nothing would serve the children but that Colonel Fitzdenys must ride Billy again; so a snaffle was put into his mouth and the Colonel mounted him bare-backed, and took him for a little turn in the park and leaped him over the bar, to their great delight. Then all three went back to the garden again, and the children began plying him with questions. His own poor horse was dead, the Colonel told them; he had carried him all through the Peninsular War but had been killed at Waterloo. The Colonel himself had been in the wars in India since then, and the name of the battle was Maheidpore, but the Duke of Wellington was not there. He had seen the Duke, however, only a few days before in London, but he wasn't dressed in his red coat and cocked hat, and he believed that the Duke never slept in his red coat and cocked hat now.

"Is the Corporal like the Duke?" asked Dick anxiously. No! the Colonel could not truthfully say that he was, but the Corporal was the bigger man of the two, which was a consolation to the children.

Then the children asked him about Boney, for Polly Short, who had been their maid, had told them that he was a "riglar monster," and she had heard it from her first cousin's wife's brother-law, who was a sergeant of Marines. But the Colonel said that Polly was wrong, for he had seen Boney himself at St. Helena, and he was not in the least like a monster, but a little fat man with a pale face and auburn hair, not nearly as big as the Corporal. And Boney had made no attempt to eat him up, but had received him with the pleasantest smile that he had ever seen, and had told him that English horses were good. "And of course he was thinking of Billy," said Elsie, "when he said that."

And then the Colonel brought out pencil and paper and drew pictures of Boney and of the Duke, and of Bheels and Pindarrees and Mahrattas and other strange people against whom he had fought in India. He also assured Dick that he had drunk puddle-water, like Lord Willoughby's men, and had been very glad to get it. Finally he produced a little silver bangle hung with curious silver coins which he put on Elsie's wrist for her very own, and a knife in a sheath for Dick. The knife was not very sharp, but then the sheath was beautiful. So that by the time when Lord Fitzdenys and Lady Eleanor came out to look for them, they found the children hanging on to the Colonel's arms and calling him Colonel George as if they had known him all their lives.