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To reach the fire-trenches is easy enough; the difficulty is to find your way out of them. The main line of fire-trenches has a kind of loop-line behind it with innumerable junctions and small depôts in the shape of dug-outs, and at first sight the subaltern's plan of the estate was as bewildering as a signalman's map of Clapham Junction.
He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's bachelor quarters. "Wouldn't you rather have a year's leave of absence, than quit altogether, Warburton?" "A year's leave of absence?" cried the invalid, "I am likely to get that, I am."
The prisoner begged that he might be allowed to see the wounded officer before he left; and, Frank having consented, he was brought to the subaltern's bedroom when he was marched out of the Fort on the first stage of his journey to the gallows. It was a dramatic scene.
Before the man could recover his weapon, Wilmshurst brought the heavy stick down upon his fingers. Dropping his rifle the Askari gripped the subaltern's wrist with his uninjured right hand, while a third native ran in to drive his bayonet through the young officer's chest.
As the volley rang out and the smoke drifted up the great staircase, the subaltern's hands tossed high above his head, his body sank into itself and toppled backward, and, like a tired child falling to sleep, the defeated soldier of fortune dropped back into the outstretched arms of his friend.
An erstwhile barber in the Senior Subaltern's Platoon did tremendous business with a pair of scissors and a comb, his patrons being seated on an upturned ammunition-case. They had not halted long before a "mail" came in. The Subaltern was not among the lucky few who received letters or small parcels. Not that he minded much.
The Senior Subaltern's throat was dry; but, as he ran his eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the woman: "You young blackguard!"
"Mr Maine, sir," whispered the lad; and the subaltern's heels dropped at once from the table upon which they had been resting, for plainly heard through the window, in a loud, forced cough, full of importance, came the utterance, "Errrrum!
Lionel was the Senior Subaltern's name. A woman came into the little circle of light by the candles on the peg tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where the Senior Subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going to happen and ready to believe the worst.
The enemy, seeing that he was almost surrounded, and that it would be impossible to extricate the greater part of his command from the battle, resolved at least to save his guns, which were accordingly withdrawn. When at length the Subaltern's Platoon pushed forward in the wake of the leading Platoon, no less a personage appeared unaccountably on the scene than the Colonel.
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