he lad puzzled him; gave him few confidences, asked for none at all,
and certainly was no cheerful companion; and yet during these days of
humiliation the two had become friends, almost inseparable.
'I've read it,' the sergeant pursued, 'in Scripture or somewhere,
that a man what keeps a hold on himself does better than if he took a
city. I don't say as I understand that altogether; but it _sounds_
right.'

'Plucky lot of cities we take, in the Royals,' growled Corporal Sam.
He nodded, as well as his posture allowed, towards San Sebastian.
'And you call that a third-class fortress!'

'Accidents will happen.' Sergeant Wilkes, puffing at his pipe, fell
back philosophically on his old catchword. 'It takes you hard,
because you're young; and it takes you harder because you had fed
yourself up on dreams o' glory, and such-like.'

'Well?'

'Well, and you have to get over it, that's all. A man can't properly
call himself a soldier till he's learnt to get over it.'

'If that's all, the battalion is qualifyin' fast!' Corporal Sam
retorted bitterly, and sat up, blinking in the strong sunlight.
Then, as Sergeant Wilkes made no reply, or perhaps because he guessed
something in Sergeant Wilkes's averted face, a sudden compunction
seized him. 'You feel it too?'

'I got to, after all my trouble,' answered Sergeant Wilkes brusquely.

'I'm sorry. Look here--I wish you'd turn your face about--it's worse
for you and yet you get over it, as you say. How the devil do you
manage?'

Still for a while Sergeant Wilkes leaned back without making reply.
But of a sudden he, too, sat upright, drew down the peak of his shako
to shade his eyes, and drawing his pipe from his mouth, jerked the
stem of it to indicate a figure slowly crossing a rise of the
sandhills between them and the estuary.

'You see that man?'

'To be sure I do. An officer, and in the R.A.--curse them!--though I
can't call to mind the cut of his jib.'

'You wouldn't. His name's Ramsay, and he's just out of arrest.'

'What has he done?'

'A many things, first and last. At Fuentes d'Onoro the whole French
cavalry cut him off--him and his battery--and he charged back clean
through them; ay, lad, through 'em like a swathe, with his horses
belly-down and the guns behind 'em bounding like skipjacks; not a gun
taken, and scarce a gunner hurt. That's the sort of man.'

'Why has he been under arrest?'

'Because the Marquis gave him an order and forgot it. And