It was the gossip round the camp-fire,
where men beguiled the weary hours of trench-duty. It was tossed from
mouth to mouth by thoughtless subalterns as they galloped on their
Tartar ponies for a day's outing to Kamiesch, when released from
sterner toil.
The attack! To-morrow--next day--some day--never! So it went on, with
a wearisome, monotonous sameness that was perfectly exasperating.
"I give you Good-day, my friend. Well, you see the summer is now close
at hand, and still we are on the wrong side of the wall."
The speaker was M. Anatole Belhomme, Hyde's French friend. They had
met outside a drinking-booth in the hut-town of Kadikoi. Hyde was
riding a pony; the other was on foot.
"Ah! my gallant Gaul, is it you?" replied Hyde. "Let's go in and
jingle glasses together, hey?"
"A little tear of cognac would not be amiss," replied the Frenchman,
whose excessive fondness for the fermented liquor of his country was
the chief cause of his finding himself a sergeant in the Voltigeurs
instead of chief cook to a Parisian restaurant or an English duke.
Hyde hitched up his pony at the door, and they entered the booth,
seating themselves at one of the tables, if the two inverted
wine-boxes used for the purpose deserved the name. There were other
soldiers about, mostly British: a couple of sergeants of the Guards,
an assistant of the provost-marshal, some of the new Land Transport
Corps, and one or two Sardinians, in their picturesque green tunics
and cocked hats with great plumes of black feathers.
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