ed to suit them. Years passed along and still the two
remained in that abomination of desolation guarding their stretch of
track and their horrid secret. Then one day ROBERTS rolled by on his
way to Victoria Falls, and, his train halting to tank-up, the old
Field-Marshal stepped ashore and called to the two gangers, who
happened to be close at hand tinkering at their trolley. The guard,
who was taking a bottle of Bass with the steward on the platform of
the diner, suddenly jabbed his friend in the brisket.

"Look, for the love of Mike!" he giggled.

The two gangers were standing talking to "BOBS," shoulder to shoulder,
heels together, feet spread at an angle of forty-five degrees, knees
braced, thumbs behind the seams of their trousers, backs hollowed,
heads erect--in short in the correct position of attention as decreed
in the Book of Infantry Training. The old man finished speaking and
the two saluted smartly and broke away. The steward looked at his
friend and nodded, "Old soldiers."

"Old deserters, you mean," retorted the guard. "_Now_ we know."

The drill habit had been too strong for those two fugitives even after
ten years.

The other night our Babe, as Orderly Officer, sat up alone in the
Mess, consuming other people's cigarettes and whisky until midnight,
then, being knocked up by the Orderly Sergeant, gave the worthy fellow
a tot to restore circulation, pulled on his gum-boots and sallied
forth on the rounds. By 12.45 he had assured himself that the line
guards were functioning in the prescribed "brisk and soldierly
manner," and that the horses were all properly tucked up in bed, and
so turned for home.

He paused at the cross-roads to hear the end of the Sergeant's
reminiscences of happy days when he, the Sergeant, (then full-private,
full in more senses than one) had held the responsible position of
beer-taster to a regiment at Jaipurbad ("an ideal drinkin' climate,
Sir"), then, dismissing the old connoisseur, continued on his way
bedward.

It must have been one o'clock by then, a black wind-noisy night. As
the Babe turned into the home straight, he saw a light flash for an
instant in a big cart-shed opposite the Mess--just a flicker as of a
match scratched and instantly extinguished.

This struck him as curious; it was no weather or hour for decent folk
to be abroad. The Babe then remembered that the mess-cart was in the
shed, and it occurred to him that somebody might be monkeying with the
harn