error when he starts to work."'

'If you fellows could quit foolin' a moment--' began Corporal Sam,
with an ingenuous blush. But here on a sudden the slope below them
opened with a roar as the breaching battery--gun after gun--renewed
its fire on the sea-wall. Amid the din, and while the earth shook
underfoot, the sergeant was the first to recover himself.

'Another breach!' he shouted between the explosions, putting up both
hands like a pair of spectacles and peering through the smoke.
'See there--to the left; and that accounts for their quiet this last
hour.' He watched the impact of the shot for a minute or so, and
shook his head. 'They'd do better to clear the horn work.
At Badajoz, now--'

But here he checked himself in time, and fortunately no one had
heard him. The men moved on and struck into the rutted track leading
from the batteries to camp. He turned and followed them in a brown
study. Ever since Badajoz, siege operations had been Sergeant
Wilkes's foible. His youngsters played upon it, drawing him into
discussions over the camp-fire, and winking one to another as he
expounded and illustrated, using bits of stick to represent
parallels, traverses, rampart and glacis, scarp and counterscarp.
But he had mastered something of the theory, after his lights, and
our batteries' neglect of the hornwork struck him as unscientific.

As he pursued the path, a few dozen yards in rear of his comrades, at
a turn where it doubled a sharp corner he saw their hands go up to
the salute, and with this slight warning came upon two of his own
officers--Major Frazer and Captain Archimbeau--perched on a knoll to
the left, and attentively studying the artillery practice through
their glasses. The captain (who, by the way, commanded B Company)
signed to him to halt, and climbed down to him while the fatigue
party trudged on. Major Frazer followed, closing his field telescope
as he descended.

'What do you say to it?' asked Captain Archimbeau, with a jerk of his
hand towards the great breach.

'It can be done, sir,' Sergeant Wilkes answered. 'Leastways, it
ought to be done. But with submission, sir, 'twill be at wicked
waste, unless they first clear the hornwork.'

'They can keep it pretty well swept while we assault. The fact is,'
said Major Frazer, a tall Scotsman, speaking in his slow Scots way,
'we assault it early to-morrow, and the general has asked me to find
volunteers.'

'For the forlorn hope, sir?'