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There was excitement in the air, wild rumour and speculation; this little unit of Jimmie's, composed of specially fit men, was going somewhere on a special errand an expedition, evidently by sea. Nobody was told where that wasn't the way in the army; but presently there were issued sheepskin-lined coats and heavy wool-lined boots in the middle of August!
How to cope? To bob or not to bob, that was the question? Then I suddenly realized that in a stiff pair of Cording's boots and a man's sheepskin-lined mackintosh, sticking out to goodness knows where, it would be a sheer impossibility. I hastily reviewed the situation. If I salute, I thought, he may think I'm taking a liberty!
Though it was early September, "sour-dough" coats were much in evidence, for the wind had a chill way of searching to the very marrow and even a good, sheepskin-lined "sour-dough" was not always protection sufficient.
Indeed, he would have gone without eating it if she had not protested in a way that made Billy foolishly glad to submit; as it was, he saddled his horse while he waited, and reached for his sheepskin-lined, "sour-dough" coat before the last mouthful was fairly swallowed. At the last minute he unbuckled his gun belt and held it out to her.
An officer descended, and began to walk back. Cockerell rose to his weary feet and walked to meet him. The officer wore a major's crown upon the shoulder-straps of his sheepskin-lined "British Warm" and the badge of the Army Service Corps upon his cap. Cockerell, indignant at the manner in which his platoon had been hustled off the road, saluted stiffly, and muttered: "Good-morning, sir!"
I was seated on an upturned barrel, hugging my sheepskin-lined greatcoat closer to me, and drawing it down over my high boots, as I made room for a couple of my wet, shivering men, and I felt ashamed to be the owner of so warm a coat as I looked at their well-worn service covering, when my sergeant put in his head and said: "Captain of the company of foot, sir, would be glad if you could give him a taste of the fire and a drop of brandy; he's half dead with the cold."
On such days as these the men scarcely left the house except to care for the beasts, and came back on the run, their faces rasped with the cold and shining-wet with snow-crystals melted by the heat of the house. Chapdelaine would pluck the icicles from his moustache, slowly draw off his sheepskin-lined coat and settle himself by the stove with a satisfied sigh. "The pump is not frozen?" he asks.
Then she came down to Peter where he sat smoking. "In the dark, father? I'll light the candles;" which she did, scolding Jane savagely between-times. "We'll have some old plays to-night, father," bringing a book which her mother had forbidden, and then bringing his sheepskin-lined chair up to the table. Peter eyed her furtively as he puffed out his cigar to the last ash.
"How about seeing the Indians?" asked Colonel Fitzgerald, turning from the map. "I should like it very much." The young officer was turned to, and agreed, like a British patriot and gentleman, to show me the Indian villages. General Huguet offered his car. The officer got his sheepskin-lined coat, for the weather was cold. "Thirty shillings," he said, "and nothing goes through it!"
Both the men took off their sheepskin-lined great-coats and used all their own rugs to wrap her up against the cold, notwithstanding her protests, positive orders and even struggles, as Valery afterwards related to me.
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