l been drilling hard, and were dog-tired. One of the
men was evidently very seedy. He complained of a sick headache, and he
was shivering with the cold.

"Bit off colour, mite?" said one.

"Jist orful, Bill. Gawd, I wish I was 'ome. The graand is so ----
hard too, and I'm as sore as if some one had been a-beatin' me with a
big stick."

"Ere mitey, you just 'ave my blanket. I don't want it. And let me
mike my old overcoat into a bit of a pillow for yer."

"You are bloomin' kind, Bill, and I don't like----"

"Oh, stow it, it's nothink. Anything you'd like, mitey?"

"No, that is----"

"Come, out with it you ----. Wot is it? Shall I fetch the doctor?"

"Ee ain't no use! besides, you'd get into a ---- row if you went to him
now. When I wos 'ome and like this my mother used to go to a chemist
and git me some sweet spirits of nitre, and it always made me as right
as a trivet. But there ain't no such ---- luck 'ere."

"Wot yer call it? Sweet spirits o' mitre? Never 'eerd on it afore.
'Ow do you tike it?"

"Oh, you just puts it in 'ot water; but there, I can't 'ave it. Good
night, Bill, and thank you for the blanket."

Bill, without a word, tired as he was, left the tent, and half an hour
afterwards returned with the medicine.

"Gawd, Bill," said the sick man, "but you ain't a ----"

"Not so much chin music. There, tike it, and go to sleep."

Such little acts of kindness as these were constantly taking place, and
they were by no means confined to men who belonged to the better-class
but were more frequently seen among the roughest and coarsest.

Bob found out, too, that there was a rough sense of honour among them.
Some of them seemed to revel in filthy language, but if a man did a
mean thing, or didn't play the game according to their standard, he was
in for a bad time. Indeed, he soon found out that, in a certain sense,
the same code of honour which prevailed at Clifton, with exceptions,
operated in this newly-formed camp.

Day after day and week after week passed, and still Bob knew nothing of
what was to happen to him. He had enlisted as a private, but on
Captain Pringle's advice had put down his name for a commission. From
the first day, however, he had heard nothing more of it. From early
morning till late in the day it was nothing but hard, tiring work.

It was all wonderfully strange to him, this intermingling with a mixed
humanity, working like a slave for that which he had hithert