Back With The Army
While the letter was being passed round from hand to hand, a good deal to Chris's discomfort, he had time to look more closely than he had done before at his travelling companions. Three of them were young lieutenants, the fourth an older man, shrewd but kindly faced. In introducing him, his friend said: "This is our medico, Dr. Dawlish. I hope that you will have no occasion to make his professional acquaintance." When they had all read the letter, the senior lieutenant said: "Now, Mr. King, we won't ask much of you to-night; we shall have all to-morrow to listen to your story. We have all had a pretty hard day's work, and shall before long turn in. Perhaps you will tell us to begin with what your corps is, and how you became the officer." "There are twenty-one of us, sir, and we are all about the same age. We were great friends together at Johannesburg, where our fathers were for the most part connected with mining. As things went on badly, we decided to form ourselves into a corps if the war broke out. They chose me as their leader--for no particular reason that I know of--and with the understanding that if I did not quite give satisfaction, I should resign in favour of one of the others. We all came down with our families from Johannesburg when war was declared, and were grossly insulted and ill- treated by the Boers, several of the ladies, among them my mother, being struck on the face with their whips; which, you can imagine, quite confirmed our determination to fight against them. We had all obtained our parents' consent, and when we got to Pietermaritzburg, proceeded to get our horses and equipments. That is all."