enemy's flank or rear, or somewhere else,
waiting our time, and then go at them like a wedge and scatter them.
Oh, how I do long to begin!"

"It seems to me," I said thoughtfully, "that the General ought to have
sent some one to find us and bring us a despatch ordering the Colonel
what to do."

"I dare say he has--half-a-dozen by now--and the Boers have captured
them; but it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter?" I said wonderingly.

"No; because, depend upon it, he'd have ordered us to sit fast till he
came."

"Well, but oughtn't the Colonel to have sent out a despatch or two
telling the General how we are fixed?"

"Yes--no--I don't know," said Denham sourly. "I'm only a subaltern--a
bit of machinery that is wound up sometimes by my superior officers, and
then I turn round till I'm stopped. Subalterns are not expected to have
any brains, or to think for themselves."

"Now you are exaggerating," I said.

"Not a bit of it, my little man. But I know what I should have done if
I had been chief."

"What's that?"

"Sent out a smart fellow who could track and ride."

"With a despatch for the General?"

"No; a message that couldn't fall into the enemy's hands. I'd have gone
like a shot."

"You couldn't send yourself," I said dryly.

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"You were telling me what you would have done if you had been chief."

"Bah! Yah! Don't you pretend to be so sharp. That's what the old man
ought to do, though--send out a messenger, and if he didn't find the
General he'd find out how things are going. I believe the Boers are
licking our regular troops."

"Oh, nonsense!" I said, looking startled. "Impossible."

"Nothing's impossible in war, my boy. I'm getting uncomfortable. You'd
go with a message if you were ordered?"

"Of course," I said.

"Of course you would. That's what the chief ought to do, and I've a
good mind to tell him so. But I say," he added, in alarm, "don't you go
and tell any one what I've been talking about."

I looked him in the face and laughed.

"Of course you will not," said Denham confidently. "Hullo! Going?"

"Yes; I want to go and see how the great Irish captain is," I replied.

"What do you want to go and see him for?" said my companion angrily.

"I hardly know," I replied. "I like to see that he's getting better."

"Well, you are a rum chap," cried Denham. "I should have thought you
would like to go and sit upon the bragging brute. Why, last tim