Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/565

Rh had already taken to white jackets, and that there would be no opportunity of airing his brand-new scarlet coatee till the next cold season.

"Changes! I believe you," replied his commanding officer. "Why, when I went to wait on the Marquess of Hastings on first arrival, with a letter of introduction — it was from Hambrowe & Co., the great wine-merchants — they supplied his lordship; my father used to get his wine from them too, and very good wine it was; — well, when I waited on Lord Hastings, he was sitting at his desk in full uniform, with his cocked-hat on the table before him — and that in the middle of the hot weather too!"

"Ay," said Passey, in support of this statement, "I can remember, too, when I came out — that was in Lord Amherst's time — the adjutant-general used to sit in his office in uniform all day."

"Oh yes! Lord Amherst, he was a good governor-general enough," said Dumble, a little testily, as if impatient at this interruption to the logical sequence of his thoughts; "but he wasn't nearly so fine-looking a man as Lord Hastings. Lord Hastings was commander-in-chief as well as governor-general, and commanded in the Mahratta campaigns. Then there was Lady Hastings too. She was a countess in her own right."

"Talking of campaigns," broke in Braywell, whose comparative youth had prevented him from taking a share in these interesting reminiscences, and who had been maintaining his enforced silence with visible impatience, — "talking of campaigns — it is just a year since we finished the Sontalia campaign."

"Was your regiment in the Sontalia campaign, sir?" asked the young surgeon.

"No, not the regiment," replied Braywell; "I was there on the staff — baggage-master to the right column; and precious little I have got for it either. Here I am back again on regimental duty; might just as well have never gone down there. Yes; this was the very day of the battle of Deoghur, and a very hot affair it was."

"Must have been," observed Braddon, "with the hot winds blowing."

"You're such a fellow for chaff, Braddon," remonstrated Braywell; "you know what I mean perfectly well. I was on the right of the line, with the brigadier; there was a detachment of the 84th N.I. there, and things were looking awkward. The jungle was so thick you couldn't see twenty yards ahead of you, and the arrows and spears were coming in like paint. I never saw anything like it. Our fellows were at it for about four hours, and must have fired full fifty rounds or more before the enemy gave way. They were there in swarms, but not a man showing himself, the crafty villains — most determined fellows — and their arrows coming in like paint ——"

"Was anybody in the gallant detachment killed or wounded?" asked Braddon.

"Their arrows coming in like paint ——" continued Braywell, — too intent on the pleasure of securing a new listener to heed the interruption.

"Oh, confound it! I can't stand this," said Braddon in a low voice to Yorke — "we have had this fifty times before; come along and have a cigar outside." So saying, he rose from the mess-table, and Yorke followed, leaving the two veterans dozing over their brandy-and-water — young Raugh sitting opposite to Braywell, with wide-open eyes, listening with unabated attention to the oft-told tale of the battle of Deoghur, while the young assistant surgeon, leaning back in his chair, and running his hand through his fine head of hair, was also attending with as much interest as could reasonably be expected from a scientific mind occupied for the moment with mere military topics.

 

had of late become somewhat intimate with Braddon. The latter was a disappointed man, remanded not long before from the headquarter staff to regimental duty; and his temper, soured by the misfortune which had marred a career of promise, rather jumped with the young man's present frame of mind. Yorke indeed was the only man in the regiment who saw anything of Braddon except on duty or at the mess, and he would often pass some of his long hours in the other's bungalow, in desultory talk or reading the books with which Braddon was well supplied. It was, however, only during the day that they met, Braddon usually passed his evenings alone, and although no one in the regiment had ever seen him the worse for drink, rumour had it that the vice which it was supposed had been the cause of his downfall was becoming a confirmed habit, and that he seldom went sober to bed. On the present occasion, however, Braddon proposed a move into his compound, where on the gravel space before 