Draw Swords! Part 5

"n.o.body will, my lad, unless you make them. It's in your own hands.

Whenever a lad gets that it's because he has been making a monkey of himself by trying to imitate what he is not."

"Well, but I was not just now."

"What!" cried Wyatt.

"Well, I suppose I was--a little," said d.i.c.k, turning more red in the face.

"A little? Awfully, old fellow. Drop it. I wouldn't have taken you through the men's quarters like that for your own sake. Believe me, my lad, when I tell you that I'm going to take you through our troop of picked men--men we're all proud of. They're keen, clever fellows, who can read one like a book. You'll have to help lead them some day, and you've got to win their respect by your manliness and pluck. Then they'll follow you anywhere."

"Manliness!" cried d.i.c.k reproachfully; "and you ridicule me for trying to be so."

"For shamming it, my lad. A boy can be naturally manly without acting."

"All right; I'll try--to be a boy," said d.i.c.k, rather glumly.

"There, now, you're facing about in the wrong direction, my lad. Don't try--don't act. Be a natural British lad. Look honestly, enviously if you like, at the men. You are a boy yet, nothing but a boy--one of the youngest officers we've had; and if you're frank and natural with it, and the men see that you've got the pluck to learn our ways, with plenty of go, they'll make it ten times as easy for you as it would be, and make a regular pet of you."

"But I don't want to be the men's pet," said d.i.c.k sharply.

"Of course not. I only mean they'll be proud of you, and like you for being young. They'll put will into everything they do when you give your orders; and when," said Wyatt, with a grim laugh--"when you're beginning, and hot and excited, and give the wrong orders and would wheel the troop in the wrong direction, they'll go right."

"Thank you, Mr Wyatt," said d.i.c.k quietly.

The lieutenant looked at him sharply.

"I was going to say, 'Mean it?'" he said, "but I see you do. Why, d.i.c.k, lad, I often wish I was a boy again, as often perhaps as I used to wish that I was a man, and longed for a moustache."

He gave d.i.c.k a comical look and laughed.

"It's all right," he said; "it's coming up, and I don't say it will beat mine some day, for I've got about the biggest in the artillery, and a great nuisance it is when I'm eating soup.--Ah, here's some one for you to know."

For a fine, stalwart-looking, slightly-grizzled, deeply-bronzed man in the undress uniform of a sergeant-major suddenly came out from a doorway, and saluted both as he drew himself up like a statue.

"Ah, Sergeant," said Wyatt, stopping short. "This is my friend, Mr Darrell, our new subaltern."

"Glad to meet you, sir," said the old non-commissioned officer stiffly.

"I'm taking him round. We're just going to look at the men."

"Yes, sir. Like me to show you round?"

"Yes, you may as well. By the way, Mr Darrell is very anxious to get into our ways as soon as he can. You'll help him all you can?"

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant grimly, and d.i.c.k found it hard work to look natural; "but I'm afraid he'll find us a little rougher than they are in the foot."

"Oh, he won't mind that.--Will you, Darrell?"

"Well, I don't know," said d.i.c.k in a frank, outspoken way, giving the sergeant a good, earnest, straightforward look as he spoke. "I expect I shall find it very rough, and mind it a good deal at first; but I suppose I shall soon get used to it if I try."

The sergeant's grim visage relaxed as d.i.c.k spoke.

"I think you'll do, sir," he said. "That's half the fight--try."

"Do? Oh, yes, he'll do. Captain Hulton says you are to take him in hand."

"Proud to do my best, sir," said the sergeant bluffly. "Mr Darrell knows, of course, that he has a deal more to learn here than he had in the foot brigade, for we have to be wonderfully smart."

"Oh, yes, he knows all that, Stubbs."

"Then it sha'n't be my fault, sir, if I don't make you as smart an officer as Mr Wyatt here, if he'll pardon me for saying so."

"That's right, Sergeant.--He broke me in, Darrell, and you'll find him a splendid teacher. Ah, here we are! Now you're going to see some of the sergeant's pupils."

d.i.c.k walked with his companion into the barrack-room, where some forty or fifty men were lounging about in the easiest of costumes--_neglige_ would be too smart a term for it; but all started to their feet as the officers entered, and looked sharply and searchingly at the new subaltern. But, as it happened, the lad did not feel the slightest nervous shrinking; for, as he went through the barrack-room, followed by the sergeant, the deep feeling of interest he felt in the aspect of the place, with the men's trappings and weapons in place and in the most perfect order, the neatness of all but the men's costume--and, above all, the aspect of the fine body of picked soldiers whom he was some day to lead--thrilled the young officer with a feeling of pride, and gave such a look of animation to his countenance that unwittingly he made as good an impression as the most exacting of friends could have wished.

The ordeal was soon pa.s.sed; for, as Wyatt said, "One doesn't like to be interfering with the men in their easy times. But what do you think of our lads, Darrell?"

"Splendid!" cried the boy enthusiastically. "You're right; they are picked men."

"Yes, they are," said Wyatt.--"Eh, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. I often wish we could ride into Hyde Park with them on a review day. I think we could make the Londoners give us a cheer. Beg pardon, sir, but some of 'em seemed to like the look of Mr Darrell here."

"Think so?"

"Yes, sir; set some of 'em thinking, as it did me!"

"Set you thinking?" said Wyatt.

"Yes, sir; about when we were young as he is, sir. Hah! it's a good many years since, though.--When will you be ready to begin, sir?" he added quickly, for he detected a look of annoyance at the turn the conversation was taking.

"To-morrow morning?" said d.i.c.k sharply. "Will that do?"

"Yes, sir; the sooner the better. Riding-school half-an-hour after _reveille_, please. Like to see the riding-school, sir?"

"No, no!" cried Wyatt; "he'll see enough of that for many days to come.

We've done enough for to-day."

The sergeant saluted, and the two officers marched away in silence for a few moments before Wyatt said sharply:

"Capital, d.i.c.k. Couldn't have been better. You were just the natural lad who was taking an eager interest in the men and their place. They saw it, and the sergeant was correct. All right, my lad; I'm glad you've joined us. You'll do."

"Think so?" said d.i.c.k, blus.h.i.+ng.

"Yes; and so will Hulton when he knows you better."

"Then he didn't think so at first?" said d.i.c.k sharply.