"No, we wouldn"t, Sir. We can march with the Regiment anywheres--p"rade an" anywhere else," said Jakin.
"If Tom Kidd goes "ell shut up like a clasp-knife," said Lew, "Tom "as very close veins in both "is legs, Sir."
"Very how much?"
"Very close veins, Sir. That"s why they swells after long p"rade, Sir, If "e can go, we can go, Sir."
Again the Colonel looked at them long and intently.
"Yes, the Band is going," he said, as gravely as though, he had been addressing a brother officer. "Have you any parents, either of you two?"
"No, Sir," rejoicingly from Lew and Jakin. "We"re both orphans, Sir.
There"s no one to be considered of on our account, Sir."
"You poor little sprats, and you want to go up to the Front with the Regiment, do you? Why?"
"I"ve wore the Queen"s Uniform for two years," said Jakin. "It"s very "ard, Sir, that a man don"t get no recompense for doin" "is dooty, Sir."
"An"--an" if I don"t go, Sir," interrupted Lew, "the Bandmaster "e says "e"ll catch an" make a bloo--a blessed musician o" me, Sir. Before I"ve seen any service, Sir."
The Colonel made no answer for a long time. Then he said quietly:--"If you"re pa.s.sed by the Doctor I dare say you can go. I shouldn"t smoke if I were you."
The boys saluted and disappeared. The Colonel walked home and told the story to his wife, who nearly cried over it. The Colonel was well pleased.
If that was the temper of the children, what would not the men do?
Jakin and Lew entered the boys" barrack-room with great stateliness, and refused to hold any conversation with their comrades for at least ten minutes. Then, bursting with pride, Jakin drawled:--"I"ve bin intervooin"
the Colonel. Good old beggar is the Colonel. Says I to "im, "Colonel,"
says I, "let me go the Front, along o" the Reg"ment." "To the Front you shall go," says "e, "an" I only wish there was more like you among the dirty little devils that bang the bloomin" drums." Kidd, if you throw your "coutrements at me for tellin" you the truth to your own advantage, your legs "ll swell."
None the less there was a Battle-Royal in the barrack-room, for the boys were consumed with envy and hate, and neither Jakin nor Lew behaved in conciliatory wise.
"I"m goin" out to say adoo to my girl," said Lew, to cap the climax.
"Don"t none o" you touch my kit because it"s wanted for active service, me bein" specially invited to go by the Colonel"
He strolled forth and whistled in the clump of trees at the back of the Married Quarters till Cris came to him, and, the preliminary kisses being given and taken, Lew began to explain the situation.
"I"m goin" to the Front with the Reg"ment," he said, valiantly,
"Piggy, you"re a little liar," said Cris, but her heart misgave her, for Lew was not in the habit of lying.
"Liar yourself, Cris," said Lew. slipping an arm round her. "I"m goin"
When the Reg"ment marches out you"ll see me with "em, all galliant and gay. Give us another kiss, Cris, on the strength of it."
"If you"d on"y a-stayed at the Depot--where you _ought_ to ha" bin--you could get as many of "em as--as you dam please," whimpered Cris, putting up her mouth.
"It"s "ard, Cris. I grant you it"s "ard. But what"s a man to do? If I"d a-stayed at the Depot, you wouldn"t think anything of me,"
"Like as not, but I"d "ave you with me, Piggy, An" all the thinkin" in the world isn"t like kissin"."
"An" all the kissin" in the world isn"t like "avin" a medal to wear on the front o" your coat."
"_You_ won"t get no medal."
"Oh, yus, I shall though. Me an" Jakin are the only acting-drummers that"ll be took along. All the rest is full men, an" we"ll get our medals with them."
"They might ha" taken anybody but you, Piggy. You"ll get killed--you"re so venturesome. Stay with me, Piggy, darlin", down at the Depot, an" I"ll love you true forever."
"Ain"t you goin" to do that _now_, Cris? You said you was."
"O" course I am, but th" other"s more comfortable. Wait till you"ve growed a bit, Piggy. You aren"t no taller than me now."
"I"ve bin in the army for two years an" I"m not goin" to get out of a chanst o" seein" service an" don"t you try to make me do so. I"ll come back, Cris, an" when I take on as a man I"ll marry you--marry you when I"m a Lance."
"Promise, Piggy?"
Lew reflected on the future as arranged by Jakin a short time previously, but Cris"s mouth was very near to his own.
"I promise, s"elp me Gawd!" said he.
Cris slid an arm round his neck.
"I won"t "old you back no more, Piggy. Go away an" get your medal, an"
I"ll make you a new b.u.t.ton-bag as nice as I know how," she whispered.
"Put some o" your "air into it, Cris, an" I"ll keep it in my pocket so long"s I"m alive."
Then Cris wept anew, and the interview ended. Public feeling among the drummer-boys rose to fever pitch and the lives of Jakin and Lew became unenviable. Not only had they been permitted to enlist two years before the regulation boy"s age--fourteen--but, by virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they were allowed to go to the Front--which thing had not happened to acting-drummers within the knowledge of boy. The Band which was to accompany the Regiment had been cut down to the regulation twenty men, the surplus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew were attached to the Band as supernumeraries, though they would much have preferred being Company buglers.
""Don"t matter much," said Jakin, after the medical inspection, "Be thankful that we"re "lowed to go at all. The Doctor "e said that if we could stand what we took from the Bazar-Sergeant"s son we"d stand pretty nigh anything."
"Which we will," said Lew, looking tenderly at the ragged and ill-made house-wife that Cris had given him, with a lock of her hair worked into a sprawling "L" upon the cover.
"It was the best I could," she sobbed. "I wouldn"t let mother nor the Sergeant"s tailor "elp me. Keep it always, Piggy, an" remember I love you true."
They marched to the railway station, nine hundred and sixty strong, and every soul in cantonments turned out to see them go. The drummers gnashed their teeth at Jakin and Lew marching with the Band, the married women wept upon the platform, and the Regiment cheered its n.o.ble self black in the face.
"A nice level lot," said the Colonel to the Second-in-Command, as they watched the first four companies entraining.
"Fit to do anything," said the Second-in-Command, enthusiastically. "But it seems to me they"re a thought too young and tender for the work in hand. It"s bitter cold up at the Front now."
"They"re sound enough," said the Colonel. "We must take our chance of sick casualties."
So they went northward, ever northward, past droves and droves of camels, armies of camp followers, and legions of laden mules, the throng thickening day by day, till with a shriek the train pulled up at a hopelessly congested junction where six lines of temporary track accommodated six forty-wagon trains; where whistles blew, Babus sweated and Commissariat officers swore from dawn till far into the night amid the wind-driven chaff of the fodder-bales and the lowing of a thousand steers.
"Hurry up--you"re badly wanted at the Front," was the message that greeted the Fore and Aft, and the occupants of the Red Cross carriages told the same tale.
"Tisn"t so much the bloomin" fighting," gasped a headbound trooper of Hussars to a knot of admiring Fore and Afts. "Tisn"t so much the bloomin"
fightin", though there"s enough o" that. It"s the bloomin" food an" the bloomin" climate. Frost all night "cept when it hails, and biling sun all day, and the water stinks fit to knock you down. I got my "ead chipped like a egg; I"ve got pneumonia too, an" my guts is all out o" order.
Tain"t no bloomin" picnic in those parts, I can tell you."