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Happy was he amongst them, and a positive hero for the day, who could boast a speaking acquaintance with any of those anomalous individuals, at present enshrouded in great-coats, but soon to appear in all the varieties of jockey costume, known by the style and title of "gentlemen riders;" who could point out, confidentially, to his admiring companions, "Jack B ," and "Little M ," and announce, from authority, how many ounces under weight one was this morning, and how many blankets were put upon the other the night before, to enable him to come to the scales at all.
The latter must indeed be provided against, for even in December that is to say, in the middle of summer it would be imprudent to travel without great-coats as well as waterproofs, so as to be protected against unexpected changes, from say, 100° in the sun, almost suddenly to 40° with a driving wind, accompanied perhaps with rain.
This done, they returned to the house, and, being shown into a parlour, took off their great-coats and hats, and showed like what they were. The man who had knocked at the door, was a stout personage of middle height, aged about fifty: with shiny black hair, cropped pretty close; half-whiskers, a round face, and sharp eyes.
In that severe weather the winter was one of the coldest of the nineteenth century the men's sufferings were very great. They were in need, too, of many things, new shoes, linen, great-coats, and other garments, and there was much delay in providing for their more urgent requirements. Thus the number of desertions was not to be wondered at.
In an instant, the other two were on their legs, and all were actively engaged in busy preparation. Sikes and his companion enveloped their necks and chins in large dark shawls, and drew on their great-coats; Barney, opening a cupboard, brought forth several articles, which he hastily crammed into the pockets. 'Barkers for me, Barney, said Toby Crackit.
In America, it would have had a hundred picturesque and perhaps ludicrous features, the symbols of the different trades, banners with strange devices, flower-shows, children, volunteer soldiers, cavalcades, and every suitable and unsuitable contrivance; but we were merely a trail of ordinary-looking individuals, in great-coats, and with precautionary umbrellas.
At night, in the salon, he used to give burlesque descriptions, in his laconic French, of street scenes: the Italian soldiers with cock-feathers drooping from a sort of bowler hat, the porters of the Embassies and great houses, with their cocked hats, their blue great-coats, and the staff with a silver knob in their hands.
He always wore one of those nut-colored great-coats with small collars which the Duc d'Orleans made the fashion after his return from England, and which were, during the Revolution, a sort of compromise between the hideous popular garments and the elegant surtouts of the aristocracy.
Two miles south of the Rhenoster kopje stands Roodeval station, in which, on that June morning, there stood a train containing the mails for the army, a supply of great-coats, and a truck full of enormous shells.
For an hour before dawn the battalion 'stood to, lining the trench with loaded rifles ready after the usual and accepted fashion, shivering despite their warm clothing and mufflers, and woollen caps and thick great-coats in the raw-edged cold of the breaking day.
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