his haversack, bulging at the top with a cheap,
bone-keyed, rosewood-veneered, gaudy-paper-sided instrument of German
make, and hung his head over it in silence.

"But what on earth has the concertina got to do with it?" Saxham was
frankly puzzled, and Beauvayse, with all his professional knowledge of
"Tommy," was for once nonplussed.

"You'd better explain to the Doctor, Corporal Leash. I'm out of the
running when it comes to killing men with concertinas. And--you don't play
as badly as all that, do you?"

"On the contrywise, Sir," explained the comrade Kelly, "plays uncommon
well, he does--all the tunes of the latest music-'all and patriotic
songs."

"An' them blasted Doppers are uncommon fond o' music, d'ye see, Sir,"
explained the wounded trooper. "They can't keep their ugly 'eads down
behind the sand-bags when they hears it. Up they pops 'em over the edge
and then--you take care they don't pop down no more."

The gay young laughter of Beauvayse was infectious, while white teeth
showed, or teeth that were not white, in the tanned faces of Irregulars
and Town Guardsmen. Even the mourning comrades grinned, and Saxham smiled
grimly as Beauvayse cried:

"By George, a more original method of reprisal I never came across! But
it's clear if you can't shoot with that drilled arm of yours you can't
play the concertina. Wish I could knock a tune out of the thing, Leash,
for your sake--enough to make a Boer put his head up. But I'm a duffer at
musical instruments--always was. What do you say, my man?"

"Beg pardon, Sir." The Corporal with the Town Guardsmen saluted, making
the most of his five feet two inches. "I can pl'y the squiffer--I mean the
concertina, Sir--a fair treat for a hammatore. And if I might be let to
tyke this man's plyce at Maxim Outpost South, Sir, I could 'elp serve the
gun, too, Sir--we've bin' attendin' Artillery Drill in spare hours."

"I shouldn't think you had any spare hours to spare?" Beauvayse looked at
the thin, tanned face with liking, and the keen pale eyes met his fairly.

"We haven't, Sir, but we manage some'ow."

"But what about your own duty?"

"I'm tykin' these men over, Sir." He indicated a solid family grocer, a
clerk of the County Court, a pseudo-Swiss baker, and two Navy Reserve men
reduced to the ranks for aggressive intemperance of the methylated-spirit
kind, which, in the absence of other liquor, had prevailed among a certain
class, until the intoxicating medium was confi