It was quite six weeks after Dick had been found, and he was weak still,
but that only troubled him by making him feel tired, and at such times
there was always a ride ready for him on the top of a pack carried by a
mule.
And there he was happy enough, for he was rapidly growing into being the
pet of the regiment, and first one of the men brought him fruit, and
some one thing and some another; but Mrs Corporal was always pretty
close at hand to take care that he was not spoiled or made ill, and
Corporal Joe said over and over again to his wife, that it was
"ama-a-azin'."
"What's amazing, Joe?" she said one day. "What do you keep saying that
for?"
"'Cause it is," he said.
"Yes, but why, Joe?"
"'Cause ever since I found that there boy you've been as proud as a
peacock with two tails."
"And enough to make me," said Mrs Corporal tartly. "There never was
such a boy before. Look at him!" and she pointed to where the little
fellow, in full uniform, was perched on a mule-pack, and the baggage
guard with fixed bayonets marched close beside.
"Yes," said Joe drily, as he screwed up his face; "I've been a-looking
at him a deal. His coatee fits horrid."
"That it don't," said Mrs Corporal; "and it was the best I could do out
of such old stuff."
"Well, it weer old," said her husband; "but it's all crinkles and
creases, and that boy puzzles me."
"Why? How?"
"'Cause you'd think after he'd seen his people killed and the house
burnt about his ears he'd ha' been frightened like; but he don't seem to
mind nothing about it, not a bit."
"Ah, it is strange," said Mrs Corporal; "but there couldn't be a braver
nor a better little chap."
"That there couldn't," said the Corporal proudly; "but I think I've
found out what's the matter with him. That crack on the head made him
an idjit."
"For shame, Joe!" cried his wife. "He's as clever and bright a little
fellow as ever stepped."
"So he is, missus; but he puzzles me. It's ama-a-azin'."
The boy puzzled Tom Jones the bugler boy too, who whenever he got a
chance came alongside of the mule or baggage wagon in the rear, and let
the little invalid earn his bugle on condition that he did not try to
blow it, and Tom made this an excuse for solemnly asking the same
questions over and over again.
"I say, who's your father?"
"Corporal Joe Beane," said the boy promptly; "I say, Tom, mayn't I have
a blow now?"
"What? No, of course not. You don't want to send the men at the double
up a hill like this."
"Why not? I should like to run too, only I so soon get tired."
"You shall have a blow some day. But I say, who's your mother?"
"Mrs Corporal Joe Beane," was the prompt reply, and the boy drummed the
mule's sides to make it go faster, but without effect.
"Well, where did you live before Joe Beane found you?"
"I don't know," said the boy, shaking his head, and Tom Jones stared
hard with his mouth open before asking his next question.
"I say, how's your head?"
"Quite well, thank you," said the boy; "how's yours?"
Tom scratched his as if he did not know.
"Look here," he cried, after a pause, as a happy thought crossed his
mind, and without pausing to state how his own head was, he fired off
another question:--"I say, who did you live with before we found you?"
"I don't know," said the boy, looking at him wonderingly, and as if he
felt amused by his companion's questions. "You ask mother."
"Here! Quick," whispered Tom. "Give me my bugle."
"Shan't. I want it," replied the boy coolly.
"But you must. Here's the Colonel and half the officers reined up at
the side to see us go by."
He snatched the bugle away as he spoke and threw the cord over his
shoulder, drawing himself up smartly, and keeping step with the guard.
Mrs Corporal Beane had caught sight of the group of officers they were
approaching, and with her heart in her mouth as she called it, she
hurried up to the side of the mule, catching up to it just as they came
abreast of the Colonel, a quiet stern-looking officer whose hair was
sprinkled with grey.
Nothing escaped his sharp eyes, and he pressed his horse's side and rode
close to the baggage mule.
"What boy's that, my good woman?"
"Mine, sir," said Mrs Beane huskily.
"Indeed? Is that the little fellow who was found in the burned
village?"
"Yes, sir," faltered the woman, as she gazed in the Colonel's stern
frowning countenance.
"Humph!" he ejaculated, and drew rein for the rear of the regiment to
file past.
"And now my poor boy will be sent away, Joe," said the agitated woman
that night; but Joe said nothing, not even when he felt his wife get up
and go to where the little fellow was sleeping soundly, and he heard her
utter a curious sobbing sound before she came to lie down again.
But no orders were given next day for the boy to be sent to the rear,
nor yet during the next week, during which the men were still hunting
frogs, as they called it--frogs which took such big leaps that the
toiling British soldiers could not come up to them.
"Oh, if they only would let us," Joe used to say every night when he
pulled off his boots to rest his feet. "It's my one wish, for we must
give 'em a drubbing, or we shall never have the face to go back to old
England again."
Joe had his wish sooner than he expected.
It was in a wild mountainous part of the beautiful country, so full of
forest and gorge that there was plenty of opportunity for the French to
hide their force on the mountain slopes of a lovely valley and let the
English regiment get well past them before they attacked.
The result was a desperate fight which lasted a couple of hours before
the 200th managed to extricate themselves with the loss of many killed
and wounded, and in spite of every man fighting like a hero, they were
beaten and had to suffer the miseries of a retreat as well as a defeat.
But the 200th did not fall back many miles before the major of the
regiment halted the main body of the men on the slopes of a rocky mount
which he determined to hold and to give the scattered and wounded a
chance to return, so a stand was made. For there was no hiding the
fact; the poor 200th had been badly beaten, as an English regiment might
reasonably be when every man was surprised and called upon to fight six,
mostly hidden from him by rocks and trees.
The enemy did not follow their advantage, so that the English had the
whole of that night to rest and refresh, though there was not much of
either, for upon the roll of the companies being called a hundred brave
men did not answer; many were wounded; and, worst misfortune of all, the
Colonel was among the missing, and had been seen last fighting like a
hero as he tried with a small company of men to save the baggage and
ammunition.
"And our poor boy, Joe," sobbed Mrs Corporal that night, as she sat by
the watch-fire, "trampled down and killed, just as I had begun to love
him as much as if he had been my own."
"Cheer up, old lass," said Joe, wincing as he spoke, for a bullet had
ploughed a nasty furrow in one arm; "we don't know yet that he isn't all
right. Prisoner, perhaps. Let's wait till morning, and see."
Mrs Corporal sobbed, and of course waited, with the men under arms all
night and expecting an attack.
But the night passed away without any alarm, and soon after sunrise in
the beautiful chestnut wood, about fifty of the missing crawled back
into camp, but there was no news of the Colonel, none of Dick, and poor
Mrs Corporal Beane had another terrible trouble on her mind as she
nursed and held water to her husband's feverish lips, for in the
terrible fight at the surprise brave stout-hearted Joe Beane had been
shot close to the Colonel's side, and he remembered seeing that officer
wave his sword, and hearing him cry, "Forward, my lads; this way," but
he could recollect no more.