Page:Wee Willie Winkie, and other stories (1890).djvu/80

74 "Don't bring us no nearer goin', though," said Jakin. "Do you know where we're ordered?"

"Gawd knows, an' 'e wont split on a pal. Somewheres up to the Front to kill Paythans—hairy big beggars that turn you inside out if they get 'old o' you. They say their women are good looking, too."

"Any loot?" asked the abandoned Jakin.

"Not a bloomin' penny, they say, unless you dig up the ground an' see what the niggers 'ave 'id. They're a poor lot." Jakin stood upright on the branch and gazed across the plain.

"Lew," said he. "There's the Colonel coming. 'Colonel's a good old beggar. Let's go an' talk to 'im."

Lew nearly fell out of the tree at the audacity of this suggestion. Like Jakin he feared not God neither regarded he man, but there are limits even to the audacity of a drummer-boy, and to speak to a Colonel was ....

But Jakin had slid down the trunk and doubled in the direction of the Colonel. That officer was walking wrapped in thought and visions of a C.B.—yes, even a K.C.B., for had he not at command one of the best Regiments of the Line—the Fore and Fit? And he was aware of two small boys charging down upon him. Once before it had been solemnly reported to him that the Drums were in a state of mutiny; Jakin and Lew being the ringleaders. This looked like an organised conspiracy.

The boys halted at twenty yards, walked to the regulation four paces, and saluted together, each as well set-up as a ramrod and little taller.

The Colonel was in a genial mood; the boys looked very forlorn and unprotected on the desolate plain, and one of them was handsome.

"Well?" said the Colonel recognising them. "Are you going to pull me down in the open? I'm sure I never interfere with you, even though—" he sniffed suspiciously—"you have been smoking."