e got Sparklets in my tent," he
sighed. "You make it in a minute!"

Not a word from Raffles, and none, you may be sure, from me. Then
suddenly Bellingham told me where his tent was, and, adding that our
case was one for serious consideration, strode in its direction
without another word until some sunlit paces separated us.

"You can bring that stuff with you," he then flung over a
shoulder-strap, "and I advise you to put it where you had it before."

A trooper saluted him some yards further on, and looked evilly at us as
we followed with our loot. It was Corporal Connal of ours, and the
thought of him takes my mind off the certainly gallant captain who only
that day had joined our division with the reinforcements. I could not
stand the man myself. He added soda-water to our whiskey in his tent,
and would only keep a couple of bottles when we came away. Softened by
the spirit, to which disuse made us all a little sensitive, our officer
was soon convinced of the honest part that we were playing for once,
and for fifty minutes of the hour we spent with him he and Raffles
talked cricket without a break. On parting they even shook hands; that
was Long John in the captain's head; but the snob never addressed a
syllable to me.

And now to the gallows-bird who was still corporal of our troop: it was
not long before Raffles was to have his wish and the traitor's wicket.
We had resumed our advance, or rather our humble part in the great
surrounding movement then taking place, and were under pretty heavy
fire once more, when Connal was shot in the hand. It was a curious
casualty in more than one respect, and nobody seems to have seen it
happen. Though a flesh wound, it was a bloody one, and that may be why
the surgeon did not at once detect those features which afterwards
convinced him that the injury had been self-inflicted. It was the
right hand, and until it healed the man could be of no further use in
the firing line; nor was the case serious enough for admission to a
crowded field-hospital; and Connal himself offered his services as
custodian of a number of our horses which we were keeping out of harm's
way in a donga. They had come there in the following manner: That
morning we had been heliographed to reinforce the C.M.R., only to find
that the enemy had the range to a nicety when we reached the spot.
There were trenches for us men, but no place of safety for our horses
nearer than this long and narrow don