roads, one quite
close, and the other a mile or more from us. A column of infantry was
marching down the near one, and it was a fair race between us, for we
were each walking for all we were worth. There was such a wreath of
dust round them that we could only see the gun-barrels and the bearskins
breaking out here and there, with the head and shoulders of a mounted
officer coming out above the cloud, and the flutter of the colours.
It was a brigade of the Guards, but we could not tell which, for we had
two of them with us in the campaign. On the far road there was also
dust and to spare, but through it there flashed every now and then a
long twinkle of brightness, like a hundred silver beads threaded in a
line; and the breeze brought down such a snarling, clanging, clashing
kind of music as I had never listened to. If I had been left to myself
it would have been long before I knew what it was; but our corporals and
sergeants were all old soldiers, and I had one trudging along with his
halbert at my elbow, who was full of precept and advice.

"That's heavy horse," said he. "You see that double twinkle?
That means they have helmet as well as cuirass. It's the Royals, or the
Enniskillens, or the Household. You can hear their cymbals and kettles.
The French heavies are too good for us. They have ten to our one, and
good men too. You've got to shoot at their faces or else at their
horses. Mind you that when you see them coming, or else you'll find a
four-foot sword stuck through your liver to teach you better. Hark!
Hark! Hark! There's the old music again!"

And as he spoke there came the low grumbling of a cannonade away
somewhere to the east of us, deep and hoarse, like the roar of some
blood-daubed beast that thrives on the lives of men. At the same
instant there was a shouting of "Heh! heh! heh!" from behind, and
somebody roared, "Let the guns get through!" Looking back, I saw the
rear companies split suddenly in two and hurl themselves down on either
side into the ditch, while six cream-coloured horses, galloping two and
two with their bellies to the ground, came thundering through the gap
with a fine twelve-pound gun whirling and creaking behind them.
Behind were another, and another, four-and-twenty in all, flying past us
with such a din and clatter, the blue-coated men clinging on to the gun
and the tumbrils, the drivers cursing and cracking their whips, the
manes flying, the mops and buckets clankin