re British, and the man over
there told us you are. And Maidstone's in danger, and the enemy not a
mile off, and you stand SMOKING.' Noel was standing crying, himself, or
something very like it.

'It's quite true,' Alice said.

The Colonel said, 'Fiddle-de-dee.'

But the Cocked-Hatted Man said, 'What was the enemy like?' We told him
exactly. And even the Colonel then owned there might be something in it.

'Can you show me the place where they are on the map?' he asked.

'Not on the map, we can't,' said Dicky--'at least, I don't think so,
but on the ground we could. We could take you there in a quarter of an
hour.'

The Cocked-Hatted One looked at the Colonel, who returned his scrutiny,
then he shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, we've got to do something,' he said, as if to himself. 'Lead on,
Macduff.'

The Colonel roused his soldiery from their stupor of pipes by words of
command which the present author is sorry he can't remember.

Then he bade us boys lead the way. I tell you it felt fine, marching
at the head of a regiment. Alice got a lift on the Cocked-Hatted One's
horse. It was a red-roan steed of might, exactly as if it had been in
a ballad. They call a grey-roan a 'blue' in South Africa, the
Cocked-Hatted One said.

We led the British Army by unfrequented lanes till we got to the gate of
Sugden's Waste Wake pasture. Then the Colonel called a whispered halt,
and choosing two of us to guide him, the dauntless and discerning
commander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He chose Dicky and Oswald
as guides. So we led him to the ambush, and we went through it as
quietly as we could. But twigs do crackle and snap so when you are
reconnoitring, or anxious to escape detection for whatever reason.

Our Colonel's orderly crackled most. If you're not near enough to tell
a colonel by the crown and stars on his shoulder-strap, you can tell him
by the orderly behind him, like 'follow my leader'.

'Look out!' said Oswald in a low but commanding whisper, 'the camp's
down in that field. You can see if you take a squint through this gap.'

The speaker took a squint himself as he spoke, and drew back, baffled
beyond the power of speech. While he was struggling with his baffledness
the British Colonel had his squint. He also drew back, and said a word
that he must have known was not right--at least when he was a boy.

'I don't care,' said Oswald, 'they were there this morning. White tents
like mushrooms, and an enemy c