Below all is confusion, noise, and
darkness, disappointment, and difficulty, vague wandering to and fro,
lamentations, and general chaos. They manage these things better up
there! However, after a bit order begins to reign. The several units
draw together. The camp-fires are beacons. The waggons struggle up. The
bleating of the lost sheep is gradually hushed, as one by one they find
their way to their various folds, and slowly, in spite of darkness and
broken ground, the tangle is smoothed out.
By a small farm, where the General lodges, blazes a huge fire. Round it
gather some staff officers, and among them, recognised from afar, are
the welcome tiger-skins of the Guides' officers. The Major sits by the
blaze in that familiar attitude of his, like a witch in "Macbeth," with
a wolf-skin karross drawn over his shoulders, and the firelight on his
swarthy face as he turns it up with a grim laugh to chaff the others
standing round. But there is rather a gloom on the party to-night. News
has just come in that poor Airlie, charging at the head of his Lancers,
has been killed. Many here knew him, and every one who knew him seems to
have been fond of him.
Winston Churchill turns up and enlivens us. There are several colonels
and senior officers squatting about, and Churchill takes the opportunity
of giving them a bit of his mind. He is much annoyed with the day's
proceedings.
Pages:
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161