Leaves from a Field Note-Book

he O.C. had scanned them with a roving eye, till catching sight of an orderly two files from the left he had begged him, almost as a personal

tting on their haunches on the lower deck, making chupattis-they were screened against the inclemency of the weather by a tarpaulin-and they patted the leathery cakes with persuasive slaps as a dairymaid pats butter. Low-caste sweepers glided like shadows to and fro. Suddenly some one crossed the gangway and the sentry stiffened and presented arms. The

er. At the foot of it they encountered a Ben

o be kept unfastened and the doors in the bulkheads le

ht o'clock I f

said the colonel sternly,

pleaded, adding with truly Oriental irrelevancy, "I am a poor man and have many children."

e colonel shortly, and with an ap

a good "fug," especially in a European winter, and the colonel had had trouble with his patients about ventilation. A kind of guerilla warfare, conducted with much plausibility and perfect politeness, had been going on for some days between him and the Pathans. The Pathans complained of the cold, the colonel of the atmosphere. At last he had met them halfway, or,

was now useless without being ornamental. With bland ingenuous faces they stared sadly at the hook, as if deprecating such unintelligent

ou?" said the

Tirah,

lk at Tirah. But all that is now past. Serve the

I am sorely trou

where

ted our women-folk. I would fain have leave to go on furlough and lie in a n

can wait. How li

ir big guns. We would fain come at them with the ba

hall come in

d for native officers. A tall Sikh ros

is you

ing, S

meditatively. "With the Kuram Field Force. He was my orderly.

axed, his eyes of lustrous jet gleame

e worthy of him. And y

eaten the King's sal

ll. Have yo

God has bee

dy mother, i

e praised,

is your '

well,

like you

like brothers side by side. But we would fain see the

shal smiled a

opped to talk to a big sowar. As he did so the men in their cots raised their heads and a sudden whisper ran round the ward. Dogras, Rajputs, Jats, Baluchis, Garhwalis clutched at the little pulleys over their cots, pulled themselves up with painful efforts, and saluted. In a distant corner a Mahratta from the aboriginal plains of the Deccan, his features dark almost to blackness, looked on uncomprehendingl

fight even as tigers, for Jarj Panjam.[4] The great Sahib h

Marshal's

"my time is finis

ng on painfully to his pulley, "the b

is heel and rushed up the companion-ladder. When halfway up he remembere

d an overmastering emotion, "your hospital arrangements are excellent. I have

es of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to be heard save the shrill poignant cry of the gulls and the hissing of an exhaust pipe. As the colonel looked across the still waters of the harbour basin he saw a bier, covered with a Union Jack, being slowly carried across the gangway of the leave-boat; a little group of officers followed

TNO

olly fi

English

Sp

George

owes his knowledge of what passed to the hospitality on board