“I have to push on with my battery. But there’s no real hurry—the Prussians are after them. Now I thought—on the off-chance, if I could find a friend here——”
“What is it you ask of me, good man?”
“If one of you wouldn’t mind stepping yonder with me. It’s much to ask, I know. But there’s a gentleman—an officer of ours——”
“Wounded?”
“No such trouble for you, good woman. Dead he is, and I helped bury him. But I want to find someone who will mark the place and keep it marked ’gainst I come back—if ever I do.”
“Was he a friend of yours, then?” asked Philomène, while the children stared.
“I wouldn’t altogether say that. He’d have said ‘yes’ fast enough, if you’d asked him. But he was a gentleman; Ramsey by name—Major Norman Ramsey; one of many fallen to-day, but I rode with him in his battery when he charged in slap through the whole French cavalry at Fuentes d’Oñoro. Will you come? ’Tis but a little way.”
His voice pleaded so—it was so strange and womanly, coming from a man of his strength and inches—that they followed him almost without demur, out by the gateway and around the sunken lane at the back of the buildings, where (for it was dark) they had to pick their steps for fear of stumbling over the dead.
Mercifully the way was not far. The tall sergeant halted and pointed to a patch of broken turf, where was a loose mound among broad wheel-ruts.
“You see, I have marked it with a stone,” said he. “But in a few days’ time there may be many around here. I want you to mark this one—it doesn’t matter how, so that you know it and can point it out when his friends ask. He wears his jacket, of course—the same as mine.” The tall man spanned his chest and turned towards the dying daylight, so that the bars of yellow braid showed between his fingers. “Only the facings will be of gold. You see those three trees standing alone? They will be half-way between it and the wall of the château—in a straight line almost; and the lane close here on our left. You cannot miss it.” He felt in his pockets.