"Go and get something to eat," the Commander had told me; "I sha'n't want you for half an hour." So I had gone across to Sergeant Haig's breast-work, and was lying down close to a fire his men had made, and huddled up against the sand-bags to find some shelter from the wind and rain.
I was feeling precious hungry again, so, unfastening my haversack, I broke off a big hunk of that home-made cake. It was jolly good, and I had a good pull at my water-bottle; old Mellins had filled it with weak tea. It was jolly hard work pulling out the stopper, for my fingers were so numb with the cold.
I broke off another piece of cake and gave it to the marine lying next to me. It was Gunner Bolton, with his rifle pointing through a loophole and his finger on the trigger. He turned round into an easier position, and after a few bites said: "D'ye think, sir, as 'ow I shall get into trouble about that 'ere gun?
"You see, sir, it was just like this. I'd been bringing up the rear and got rather be'ind'and, what with one thing an' another, and in them thick bushes, it being so dark an' all, I jest lost mysel' and couldn't no'ow find the rest of 'em. So I thinks to mysel', 'Jest obey orders', and when you're lost, as the Commander said, 'Jest climb and climb'.
"Well, that was what I did, sir," he continued, with a half-anxious, half-humorous expression, "and I climbed and I climbed till, blow me! I simply fell over them sandbags, and not a savidge anywhere could I see. So I jest lights my pipe and stops there, knowing the Commander would be along in no time. But you see, sir, I've rayther done 'im out of 'is show, and my mates are rayther furious about it too.
"I wish I'd 'ung on to the party, an' then there wouldn't 'ave been none of this 'ere trouble."
He munched his cake solemnly and then added slyly: "That 'sentry-go' business, sir, that's what riled 'em. That was just for effect, I don't mind telling you, sir."
"That's all right, Bolton," I told him. "You won't hear any more about it from the Commander, I'm sure of that."
"Well, I 'opes you're right, sir; an' if you'll look arter this 'ere rifle of mine I'll jest see if there ain't a little o' that 'ot cocoa left."
He crawled away, scraped a little out of the big mess-tins, warmed it over the fire in his own tin cup, and brought it back to me.