Стрелок Додд

The captain summoned his four sergeants and issued his orders. 'Sergeant Bossin's section will do picket duty to-night. I will attend to the posting of the sentries myself. The other sections may bivouac and cook.' The captain tried to meet the eyes of his sergeants when he said this, but his gaze wavered. It was hard to say those words and face the reproach in the faces of the others. There was a chill wind blowing, and a thin rain was begi

'Do we bivouac where we are, sir?' asked Godron.

'Yes. Those are the orders.'

The captain knew that it was a bad disciplinary move to blame the hardship the men had to suffer upon higher authority, but he had to excuse himself. Back went the sergeants to where the exhausted men lay upon the bleak hillside. So weary were they that the news that there was to be no issue of rations was received without a complaint. The men had ceased, in fact, to expect a ration issue, and, marching as they had been in contact with the enemy, they had had no chance to plunder food.

Wearily they made their preparations for the night. Half a dozen volunteers-the ones whose feet were least damaged -began to crawl about the hill cutting bbushes for fuel.

Fournier and Lebrun, who boasted the possession of a blanket which they carried turn and turn about, began to erect it like a tiny tent. Soon half a dozen wretched little fires were alight, giving much smoke and very little heat. Only round one fire was there any bustle of expectation. Here a pot was actually being hung over the flames, and one man was preparing the meat for the evening meal for himself and his intimate friends. It was a little white dog he had seen at the begi

Someone carried a platter of the stew to the captain in his solitary bivouac, but although he looked at it with longing, and sniffed at its heavenly savour, he refused it sadly, and turned again to gnawing at his flinty bread. He could not eat meat unless all his men had at least a taste of it.

Darkness fell, and the fires began to die away. The wretched men huddled their cloaks closer about their ragged bodies, and tried to burrow into the earth in an effort to shelter themselves from the penetrating cold. They were only boys, these men of the Eighth Corps, new recruits bundled together into hastily formed battalions and sent out on the long and dreary road to Portugal, untrained, unseasoned, ill-equipped. The man who sent them was at that time progressing about his provinces displaying to a dazzled people the marvellous new wife he had won by right of conquest-a real Hapsburg princess, daughter of fifty emperors.

The wind blew colder with the falling of the night. The men muttered and groaned as they turned backwards and forwards seeking some sort of warmth or comfort. Yet their rest was not broken when the sentries challenged, for that was a cry to which they were accustomed. For the captain went the rounds three times that night, to see that the sentries were alert and at their posts. Vigilance was necessary, for Portuguese had been known to creep into the ranks of sleeping men and cut half a dozen throats before crawling away again undetected.

Chapter IX

EVEN the young soldiers of the Eighth Corps could look at a river and guess by the direction of its flow whether they were in advance or retreat. 'What's this, sergeant?' asked young Bernhard. 'Are we going home?' For the regiment was at the head of a long column marching up the high road along the Tagus bank away from the Lines.

'Perhaps God knows, but I don't,' said Godinot.

'Perhaps we're going to find Godinot's uncle,' said Fournier.

'Let us hope so,' said Godinot. He himself could not hope so; he could not imagine that they were about to pass the bridgeless Tagus and join with the distant Army of the South.

'No,' said Fournier, 'Bernhard is right. We're going home. Back to decent billets. And all of us are to be given a new pair of shoes and let us hope Godron will get another pair of breeches before the Spanish ladies lay eyes on him and swoon in ecstasy.'

There was a laugh at that. The boys could actually laugh, now that a definite move had been made and they were marching in a new direction. They passed a dead horse at the side of the road.

'The dragoons are in front of us, then,' said Godinot, looking at the thing, which was just begi

'Why should it be one of ours?' asked Godron. There was no fraction of its equipment left on it.

'By the brand on its flank, son,' replied Godinot. 'When are you going to learn your trade?'

'But if it's one of ours,' said Bernhard thoughtfully, 'and the dragoons are in front, it looks like a retreat, doesn't it?'

'Maybe,' said Godinot, and then he hardened his heart, for he did not want these boys' hopes raised too high. 'But they'd be sent back out of the way whatever we were going to do-attack the lines or stand still. I expect we're only sent this way to act as flank guard to look after the river.'

That cast them down: the prospect of lingering further in Portugal was abhorrent to them. There was no further conversation until another incident occurred to stimulate it afresh.

A staff officer came clattering up the paved road along the column to where the colonel rode at the head.

'Orders,' said Bernhard sagely. 'And orders always mean trouble.' He was right. Somewhere farther back the road had diverged from the river in order to cross at a more convenient point a double-headed spur of hills which ran at right angles down to the river. Up into the mass of tangled country lying between road and river diverged a narrow, stony lane.

Here the battalion halted for a moment, and the rumour- as always, no one knew who was responsible for it- ran down the ranks that billets lay at the end of the lane. But the colonel clearly did not expect a hospitable reception at the billets, seeing that he pushed the battalion up the lane in advance-guard formation.

'This looks like the end of our retreat,' said Godron.

'But billets to-night, boys,' said Fournier. 'And soup for supper. At that very moment a shot rang out at the head of the column, followed by half a dozen more. The column halted, went on, halted again, while the firing increased and died away and revived. Godinot's friends at the rear of the column did not bother to crane their necks to see what was happening in front. This sort of skirmish occurred two or three times a day to a column marching in Portugal. Then the captain came back down the column, his drummer behind him. He scaled the steep side of the lane and stood looking up the hills for a space before he turned and beckoned to his waiting company. They climbed the bank with stoical nonchalance.

'Chase those fellows over into the river,' said the captain.

Everyone knew what he had to do. The company spread out in a long thin line and pushed slowly up the steep hill. Right at the summit occasional shots and puffs of smoke indicated where the advance guard was in action. For some distance they met with no opposition, but half-way up the hill a puff of smoke jetted out from behind a rock and a bullet crackled overhead.