few simple words, the
machinery which would launch his army at the enemy. The Twelfth
understood the orders when they saw the smart young aide approaching old
Colonel Sponge, and they rose as one man, apparently afraid that they
would be late. There was a clank of accoutrements. Men shrugged their
shoulders tighter against their packs, and thrusting their thumbs
between their belts and their tunics, they wriggled into a closer fit
with regard to the heavy ammunition equipment. It is curious to note
that almost every man took off his cap, and looked contemplatively into
it as if to read a maker's name. Then they replaced their caps with
great care. There was little talking, and it was not observable that a
single soldier handed a token or left a comrade with a message to be
delivered in case he should be killed. They did not seem to think of
being killed; they seemed absorbed in a desire to know what would
happen, and how it would look when it was happening. Men glanced
continually at their officers in a plain desire to be quick to
understand the very first order that would be given; and officers looked
gravely at their men, measuring them, feeling their temper, worrying
about them.

A bugle called; there were sharp cries, and the Kicking Twelfth was off
to battle.

The regiment had the right of line in the infantry brigade, and the men
tramped noisily along the white road, every eye was strained ahead; but,
after all, there was nothing to be seen but a dozen farms--in short, a
country-side. It resembled the scenery in Spitzbergen; every man in the
Kicking Twelfth had often confronted a dozen such farms with a composure
which amounted to indifference. But still down the road came galloping
troopers, who delivered information to Colonel Sponge and then galloped
on. In time the Twelfth came to the top of a rise, and below them on
the plain was the heavy black streak of a Spitzbergen squadron, and
behind the squadron loomed the grey bare hill of the Rostina position.

There was a little of skirmish firing. The Twelfth reached a knoll,
which the officers easily recognised as the place described by the
cavalry as suitable for the Spitzbergen guns. The men swarmed up it in a
peculiar formation. They resembled a crowd coming off a race track; but,
nevertheless, there was no stray sheep. It was simply that the ground on
which actual battles are fought is not like a chess board. And after
them came swinging a six-gun battery,