The
Regimental Sergeant-Major looked wearily across the Sergeants'
Mess tent when the news was announced.
"There goes the worst of them," he said. "It'll take the best, and
then, please God, it'll stop." The Sergeants were silent till one
said: "It couldn't be him!" and all knew of whom Travis was
thinking.
Bobby Wick stormed through the tents of his Company, rallying,
rebuking, mildly, as is consistent with the Regulations, chaffing
the fainthearted; haling the sound into the watery sunlight when
there was a break in the weather, and bidding them be of good
cheer, for their trouble was nearly at an end; scuttling on his
dun pony round the outskirts of the camp and heading back men who,
with the innate perversity of British soldiers, were always
wandering into infected villages, or drinking deeply from rain-
flooded marshes; comforting the panic-stricken with rude speech,
and more than once tending the dying who had no friends - the men
without "townies"; organizing, with banjos and burnt cork, Sing-
songs which should allow the talent of the Regiment full play; and
generally, as he explained, "playing the giddy garden-goat all
round."
"You're worth half a dozen of us, Bobby," said Revere in a moment
of enthusiasm.
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