within a hundred miles?
Sergeant, this pork is like manna in the wilderness. Look me up before
you report yourself to Major de Blacquaire, will you? I'm responsible
for the fire, you understand. It was my duty to retire the whole crowd
of you under arrest, I know, but there isn't a lot of fun going for you
beggars here, is there? Goodnight, Sergeant, and don't forget the hour
in the morning.'

'Good-night, sir.' 'God go with you, sir.' 'A merry Christmas and a
loight harrut to you, sir, for many a year.'

'That's your man, nah, Sergeant,' said one man out of the shadow in a
tone that was learned in Rotherham, or very near it. 'Ah like Captain
Volnay as mooch as ah like anybody. He's got a kind of a way with him
an' he sits dahn with the like of huz, and he talks to us as if we was
men in place o' bein' cattle, which is the way with most on 'em. Here's
good luck to Captain Volnay, an' if ah'd got a glass o' that steamin'
poonch they'n got in Aberdeen, ode bird, ah'd scald _my_ throat with a
relish.'

They were all full of roast pork, or of pork more or less roasted, and
the scent of the sacrifice was yet in the air, and their war-bitten
souls were cheered and warmed, if ever so little.

'Yis,' said one lad, 'if half the quality knowed!'

'Hallo!' said Polson, turning in the fragrant dark. 'How far from
Bilston were _you_ born?'

'Wedgebury,' said the voice. 'No furder.'

'Beacon Hargate, me,' said Polson. 'I'd ha' guessed it, Sergeant. I'd
ha' guessed it. I niver heerd your voice afore to-night, but there's a
kind of a turn of the tongue in it now and then.'

The contingent fell to silence, and a wet clinging snow began, ruled in
straight lines. The embers of the fire hissed under it, and the men drew
themselves into such shelter as they could find, and waited in the grey,
cold patience for the expected relief from duty. It was long in coming,
and they learned afterwards that the regimental Sergeant-major, whose
duty it ought to have been to relieve them on that Christmas morning,
was dead from dysentery, poor fellow, and as a matter of fact it turned
out that he was buried in the muddy earth and half frozen in there
before anybody remembered to take up his duty.

The long, long night went on, and the Russian gunner, finding his
attention no longer drawn to the distant fire, had gone to sleep or
anyhow fallen silent, when a witching noise rose upon the air, and all
the worn, half-sleeping men sat up to listen