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I drew what comfort I could from the sight of the continually passing troops; a platoon off to musketry training; a battalion, brown and dusty, on a route march with full equipment, whistling "Tipperary"; sections of an Army Service train cursing good-humouredly at their mules; a battery of artillery thundering along at a clean, rhythmical trot which, considering what they were like in their slovenly jogging and bumping three months ago, afforded me prodigious pleasure.
They talked for a while, and then the Prime Minister looked at his watch, and suggested that the Session ought to be getting started. Paul nodded, and they went down the hall and into the Rotunda. The big semicircular lobby was empty, now, except for a platoon of Household Guards, and the Empress Marris and her ladies-in-waiting.
His senior subaltern was wearing a "British warm," the skirt of which had been riddled by machine-gun bullets, and a sergeant was to come out in orders that evening as an officer to take the remaining platoon.
I had thought that I would have a nice collection of souvenirs to take to Blighty if I ever got leave. I got the leave all right, and shortly, but the collection stayed behind. The dug-out that Number 10 drew was built of concrete and was big enough to accommodate the entire platoon.
Upon the oath of allegiance being proposed to him, instead of simply declining, he defied the Judge to do his worst, expressing his readiness to confront either gallows or platoon. The risk of either was about equal to that of his being tortured at the stake, on the steps of the Capitol.
The messenger said the party approaching the Breedings road consisted of about thirty mounted men. He decided to send Lieutenant Belthorpe's platoon to attack them, accompanying the force himself, for he could not remain inactive when there was fighting to be done.
The lieutenant was surprised at the strange instructions given him, and although he reflected that the colonel must have good reasons for the command, probably some cause to fear an attack on this point, he instinctively felt a misgiving. The platoon of infantry brought by Colonel Lopez had taken its stand behind the battery.
The first thing they did was to make us stand in platoons, and then the commanding officer stationed a soldier on the flanks of each platoon to keep us regular, and to march and wheel according to rule. The word was then given to march, when we all ran up together just as we were when the strutting captain Parker reviewed us on the deck of the Tenedos. We were then commanded to halt.
The Quartermaster-Sergeant having been wounded, Sergeant Jack has taken his place; Sergeant Butterworth has been wounded; and Sergeant Williams and Sergeant Dawson are on 'battle reserve. There, therefore, remain only three sergeants to four platoons; and all the N.C.O.'s in my platoon are lance-corporals and cannot, therefore, very well be promoted to sergeant at a bound....
To heighten the excitement and confuse the guessers, a number of dry poles are laid before each platoon, upon which the members of the party "in hand" beat furiously with short staves, keeping time to the choral chant already mentioned, which waxes fast and furious as the game proceeds. As large bets are staked upon the game, the excitement is prodigious.
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