Ultimately the night deepened to the tone of black velvet. The outlines
of the fireless camp were like the faint drawings upon ancient tapestry.
The glint of a rifle, the shine of a button, might have been of threads
of silver and gold sewn upon the fabric of the night. There was little
presented to the vision, but to a sense more subtle there was
discernible in the atmosphere something like a pulse; a mystic beating
which would have told a stranger of the presence of a giant thing--the
slumbering mass of regiments and batteries.
With fires forbidden, the floor of a dry old kitchen was thought to be a
good exchange for the cold earth of December, even if a shell had
exploded in it and knocked it so out of shape that when a man lay curled
in his blanket his last waking thought was likely to be of the wall that
bellied out above him as if strongly anxious to topple upon the score of
soldiers.
Billie looked at the bricks ever about to descend in a shower upon his
face, listened to the industrious pickets plying their rifles on the
border of the town, imagined some measure of the din of the coming
battle, thought of Dan and Dan's chagrin, and rolling over in his
blanket went to sleep with satisfaction.
At an unknown hour he was aroused by the creaking of boards. Lifting
himself upon his elbow, he saw a sergeant prowling among the sleeping
forms. The sergeant carried a candle in an old brass candle-stick. He
would have resembled some old farmer on an unusual midnight tour if it
were not for the significance of his gleaming buttons and striped
sleeves.
Billie blinked stupidly at the light until his mind returned from the
journeys of slumber. The sergeant stooped among the unconscious
soldiers, holding the candle close, and peering into each face.
"Hello, Haines," said Billie. "Relief?"
"Hello, Billie," said the sergeant. "Special duty."
"Dan got to go?"
"Jameson, Hunter, McCormack, D. Dempster. Yes. Where is he?"
"Over there by the winder," said Billie, gesturing. "What is it for,
Haines?"
"You don't think I know, do you?" demanded the sergeant. He began to
pipe sharply but cheerily at men upon the floor. "Come, Mac, get up
here. Here's a special for you. Wake up, Jameson. Come along, Dannie, me
boy."
Each man at once took this call to duty as a personal affront. They
pulled themselves out of their blankets, rubbed their eyes, and swore at
whoever was responsible. "Them's orders," cried the sergeant. "Come! Get
out of here." An undetailed head with dishevelled hair thrust out from a
blanket, and a sleepy voice said: "Shut up, Haines, and go home."
When the detail clanked out of the kitchen, all but one of the remaining
men seemed to be again asleep. Billie, leaning on his elbow, was gazing
into darkness. When the footsteps died to silence, he curled himself
into his blanket.
At the first cool lavender lights of daybreak he aroused again, and
scanned his recumbent companions. Seeing a wakeful one he asked: "Is Dan
back yet?"