t I that night, as I curled
myself to sleep in a loft where Sergeant Henderson considerately
found a corner for me under some pathetically empty fowl-roosts.
Sergeant Henderson in his captain's absence had claimed me from a
distracted adjutant who wanted to know where the devil I had come
from, and why, and if I would kindly make myself scarce and leave him
in peace--a display of temper pardonable in a man who had just come
in wet to his middle from fording the river amid cannoning blocks of
ice.

Here was war at last, and I was not long in making acquaintance with
it. I awoke to find, by the light of the lantern swung from the
roost overhead, the dozen men in the loft awake and pulling on their
boots. They had lain in their sodden clothes all night: but of their
boots, I found, they were as careful as dandies, and to grease them
would hoard up a lump of fat even while their stomachs craved for it.
Sergeant Henderson motioned me to pull on mine. From my precious
bugle I had never parted, even to unsling it, since leaving Figueira.
And so I stood ready.

We bundled on our great-coats, climbed down the ladder, and filed out
into the street. It was dark yet, though I could not guess the hour;
and bitter cold, with an east wind which seemed to set the very stars
shivering. The men stamped their feet on the frozen road as we
hurried to the alarm-post, and there I walked into a crowd of dark
figures which closed around me at once. For a moment I supposed the
whole army to be massed there in the darkness, and wondered foolishly
if we were to assault Ciudad Rodrigo at once. A terrible murmur
filled the night--the more terrible because, while the few words
spoken near me were idle and jocular, it ran down the jostling crowd
into endless darkness, gathering menace as it went.

But the sergeant, gripping my shoulder, ordered me gruffly to keep
close beside him, and promised to find me my place. The jostling
grew regular, almost methodical, and by and by an officer came
down the road carrying a lantern, and spoke with Henderson for a
moment. At a word from him the men began to number off. Far up the
road, other lanterns were moving and voices calling. Then after a
long pause, on the reason of which the company speculated in
whispers, the troops ahead began to move and the order came down to
us--"Order arms--Fix bayonets--Shoulder arms!"--a pause--"By the
right, quick march!"

An hour later, still in darkness, we ha