Corporal Sam | Page 6

at the sky, the corporal, with his sound hand
clasping his wounded one behind his head, his gaze fixed gloomily
between his knees and across the dunes, on the still unrepaired breach
in San Sebastian.
A whole fortnight had dragged by since the assault: a fortnight of
idleness for the troops, embittered almost intolerably by a sense that the
Fifth Division had disgraced itself. One regiment blamed another, and
all conspired to curse the artillery--whose practice, by the way, had
been brilliant throughout the siege. Nor did the gunners fail to retort;
but they were in luckier case, being kept busy all the while, first in
shifting their batteries and removing their worst guns to the ships, next

in hauling and placing the new train that arrived piecemeal from
England; and not only busy, but alert, on the watch against sorties. Also,
and although the error of cannonading the columns of assault had never
been cleared up, the brunt of Wellington's displeasure had fallen on the
stormers. The Marquis ever laid stress on his infantry, whether to use
them or blame them; and when he found occasion to blame, he had
words--and methods--that scarified equally the general of division and
the private soldier.
'Fast enough you understand,' repeated Corporal Sam savagely.
'I do, then, and I don't,' admitted Sergeant Wilkes, after a pause. The
lad puzzled him; gave him few confidences, asked for none at all, and
certainly was no cheerful companion; and yet during these days of
humiliation the two had become friends, almost inseparable. 'I've read
it,' the sergeant pursued, 'in Scripture or somewhere, that a man what
keeps a hold on himself does better than if he took a city. I don't say as
I understand that altogether; but it sounds right.'
'Plucky lot of cities we take, in the Royals,' growled Corporal Sam. He
nodded, as well as his posture allowed, towards San Sebastian. 'And
you call that a third-class fortress!'
'Accidents will happen.' Sergeant Wilkes, puffing at his pipe, fell back
philosophically on his old catchword. 'It takes you hard, because you're
young; and it takes you harder because you had fed yourself up on
dreams o' glory, and such-like.'
'Well?'
'Well, and you have to get over it, that's all. A man can't properly call
himself a soldier till he's learnt to get over it.'
'If that's all, the battalion is qualifyin' fast!' Corporal Sam retorted
bitterly, and sat up, blinking in the strong sunlight. Then, as Sergeant
Wilkes made no reply, or perhaps because he guessed something in
Sergeant Wilkes's averted face, a sudden compunction seized him. 'You
feel it too?'

'I got to, after all my trouble,' answered Sergeant Wilkes brusquely.
'I'm sorry. Look here--I wish you'd turn your face about--it's worse for
you and yet you get over it, as you say. How the devil do you manage?'
Still for a while Sergeant Wilkes leaned back without making reply.
But of a sudden he, too, sat upright, drew down the peak of his shako to
shade his eyes, and drawing his pipe from his mouth, jerked the stem of
it to indicate a figure slowly crossing a rise of the sandhills between
them and the estuary.
'You see that man?'
'To be sure I do. An officer, and in the R.A.--curse them!--though I
can't call to mind the cut of his jib.'
'You wouldn't. His name's Ramsay, and he's just out of arrest.'
'What has he done?'
'A many things, first and last. At Fuentes d'Onoro the whole French
cavalry cut him off--him and his battery--and he charged back clean
through them; ay, lad, through 'em like a swathe, with his horses
belly-down and the guns behind 'em bounding like skipjacks; not a gun
taken, and scarce a gunner hurt. That's the sort of man.'
'Why has he been under arrest?'
'Because the Marquis gave him an order and forgot it. And because
coming up later, expecting to find him where he wasn't and had no right
to be, the Marquis lost his temper. And likewise, because, when a great
man loses his temper, right or wrong don't matter much. So there goes
Captain Ramsay broken; a gentleman and a born fighter; and a captain
he'll die. That's how the mills grind in this here all-conquering army.
And the likes of us sit here and complain.'
'If a man did that wrong to me--' Corporal Sam jumped to his feet and
stared after the slight figure moving alone across the sandhills.

Had his curiosity led him but a few paces farther, he had seen a strange
sight indeed.
Captain Norman Ramsay, wandering alone and with a burning heart,
halted suddenly on the edge of a sand-pit. Below him four men stood,
gathered in a knot--two of them artillery officers, the others officers of
the