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We led the British army by unfrequented lanes till we got to the gate of Sugden’s Waste Wake pasture. Then the colonel called a whispered halt, and choosing two of us to guide him, the dauntless and discerning commander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He chose Dicky and Oswald as guides. So we led him to the ambush, and we went through it as quietly as we could. But twigs do crackle and snap so when you are reconnoitring, or anxious to escape detection for whatever reason.

Our Colonel’s orderly crackled most. If you’re not near enough to tell a colonel by the crown and stars on his shoulder-strap, you can tell him by the orderly behind him, like “follow my leader.”

“Look out!” said Oswald in a low but commanding whisper, “the camp’s down in that field. You can see if you take a squint through this gap.”

The speaker took a squint himself as he spoke, and drew back, baffled beyond the power of speech. While he was struggling with his baffledness the British Colonel had his squint. He also drew back, and said a word that he must have known was not right–at least when he was a boy.

“I don’t care,” said Oswald, “they were there this morning. White tents like mushrooms, and an enemy cleaning a caldron.”

“With sand,” said Dicky.

“That’s most convincing,” said the Colonel, and I did not like the way he said it.

“I say,” Oswald said, “let’s get to the top corner of the ambush–the wood, I mean. You can see the cross-roads from there.”

We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer dismayed our almost despairing spirits.

We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald’s patriotic heart really did give a jump, and he cried, “There they are, on the Dover Road.”

Our miscellaneous sign-board had done its work.

“By Jove, young un, you’re right! And in quarter column, too! We’ve got ’em on toast–on toast, egad!”

I never heard any one not in a book say “egad” before, so I saw something really out of the way was indeed up.

The Colonel was a man of prompt and decisive action. He sent the orderly to tell the Major to advance two companies on the left flank and take cover. Then we led him back through the wood the nearest way, because he said he must rejoin the main body at once. We found the main body Very friendly with Noel and H. O. and the others, and Alice was talking to the Cocked-Hatted One as if she had known him all her life. “I think he’s a general in disguise,” Noel said. “He’s been giving us chocolate out of a pocket in his saddle.” Oswald thought about the roast rabbit then–and he is not ashamed to own it–yet he did not say a word. But Alice is really not a bad sort. She had saved two bars of chocolate for him and Dicky. Even in war girls can sometimes be useful in their humble way.

The Colonel fussed about and said, “Take cover there!” and everybody hid in the ditch, and the horses and the Cocked Hat, with Alice, retreated down the road out of sight. We were in the ditch too. It was muddy–but nobody thought of their boots in that perilous moment. It seemed a long time we were crouching there. Oswald began to feel the water squelching in his boots; so we held our breath and listened. Oswald laid his ear to the road like a Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace, but when your county is in danger you care but little about keeping your ears clean. His backwoods strategy was successful. He rose and dusted himself and said:

“They’re coming!”

It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be heard quite audibly, even by ears in their natural position. The wicked enemy approached. They were marching with a careless swaggeringness that showed how little they suspected the horrible doom which was about to teach them England’s might and supremeness. Just as the enemy turned the corner so that we could see them, the Colonel shouted: