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The senior officers, to be sure, grumbled at having been kept out of bed, and the English troops pretended to be sulky, but there was joy in the hearts of all the subalterns, and whispers ran up and down the line: "No ball-cartridge what a beastly shame!" "D'you think the beggars will really stand up to us?" "'Hope I shall meet my money-lender there. I owe him more than I can afford."
During the calms, we amused ourselves fishing for dolphins, and practising for the first time with ball-cartridge, a bottle being corked and flung overboard as far as possible to serve as a target, and a dollar being offered to the first man who could break it, each one firing once.
I am sorry to say that they were all pleased, unholily pleased, at the chance of what they called 'a little fun. The senior officers, to be sure, grumbled at having been kept out of bed, and the English troops pretended to be sulky, but there was joy in the hearts of all the subalterns, and whispers ran up and down the line: 'No ball-cartridge what a beastly shame! 'D'you think the beggars will really stand up to us? ''Hope I shall meet my money-lender there.
There are probably times in the experiences of most of us when we seem to awake out of a long dream and begin to appreciate fully that the circumstances in which we are placed are stern realities after all. Such a time of awakening came to our hero when he and his comrades each received fifty rounds of ball-cartridge, and stood ready to repel assault on the defences of Suakim.
It appeared that on the day that Abd-el-Kader had ordered Kabba Rega to disarm the people of Suleiman upon his first arrival at Masindi, the young king had certainly ordered their disarmament, but he had himself retained their arms and ammunition, in addition to a goatskin bag with about 300 rounds of ball-cartridge. This had never been reported to me.
The ingenuity of our tormentors, however, prohibited our knowing any thing in the shape of indulgence; and in realisation of the dramatist's renowned mot, "traitors never sleep," the prison door was suddenly flung open a drum rattled through the aisle the whole body of the prisoners were ordered to stand forth and answer to their names; this ceremony concluding with the march of the whole night-guard into the chapel, and their being ordered to load with ball-cartridge, to give us the sufficient knowledge of what any attempt to escape would bring upon us in future.
When the officer in command sent him and his comrades to their station after the ball-cartridge supply just referred to and told them to keep a sharp look-out, for Osman Digna was giving them a great deal of trouble at the time, and pointed out where they were to go if attacked, and warned them to be ready to turn out on the instant that the bugle should sound the alarm, Miles was as full of energy and determination to fight and die for his country as the best of his comrades, though he did not express so strong a wish for a "brush with the enemy," as some of them did, or sympathise much with Corporal Flynn when he said
You will never use it. 'Will I not? said he. 'Listen, I'll tell you what I've done already. I've ordered the regiment at Castletown to be on Tynwald Hill on Tynwald day. Every man of these there are three hundred shall have twenty rounds of ball-cartridge.
I went on at my best pace, and being lightly equipped neither musket nor ball-cartridge to carry I soon out stripped them all; and, after about twenty minutes' brisk running, saw in front of me a long, low farm-house, the walls all pierced for musketry, and two small eight-pounders in battery at the gate. I looked back for my companions, but they were not up, not a man of them to be seen.
I hope so, my lad, for everybody's sake; but it's tough work getting through the jungle and there, look at that! These fellows have plenty of pluck, or they wouldn't expose themselves as they do. I expect to find that we have very little more ball-cartridge. Well, it will be bayonet against spear, and if it were only equal sides I should back our lads.
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