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“I have though,” said Duncannon quickly. “That’s another thing I’ve taught ’em. They picked it up wonderfully quickly. There isn’t one of ’em who doesn’t know a few sentences now.”

“You seem to have found your vocation in teaching these heathen to sit up and beg,” observed Herne, with a dry smile.

Duncannon turned dusky red under his tan.

“Perhaps I have,” he said, with a certain, doggedness.

Herne, with his back to the light, was watching him.

“Well,” he said finally, “we’ve served our turn. The battalion is going Home!”

Duncannon gave a great start.

“Already?”

“After two years’ service,” the other reminded him grimly.

Duncannon fell silent, considering, the matter with bent brows.

“Who succeeds us?” he asked at length.

Herne shrugged his shoulders.

“You don’t know?” There was sudden, sharp anxiety in Duncannon’s voice. He got off the table with a jerk. “You must know,” he said.

Herne sat motionless, but he no longer looked the other in the face.

“You’ve taught ’em to fight,” he said slowly. “They are men enough to look after themselves now.”

“What?” Duncannon flung the word with violence. He took a single stride forward, standing over Herne in an attitude that was almost menacing. His hands were clenched. “What?” he said again.

Herne leaned back, and felt for his cigarette-case.

“Take it easy, old chap!” he said. “It was bound to come, you know. It was never meant to be more than a temporary occupation among these friendlies. They have been useful to us, I admit. But we can’t fight their battles for them for ever. It’s time for them to stand on their own legs. Have a smoke!”

Duncannon ignored the invitation. He turned pale to the lips. For a space of seconds he said nothing whatever. Then at length, slowly, in a voice that was curiously even, “Yes, I’ve taught ’em to fight,” he said. “And now I’m to leave ’em to be massacred, am I?”

Herne shrugged his shoulders again, not because he was actually indifferent, but because, under the circumstances, it was the easiest answer to make.

Duncannon went on in the same dead-level tone:

“Yes, they’ve been useful to us, these friendlies. They’ve made common cause with us against those infernal Wandis. They might have stayed neutral, or they might have whipped us off the ground. But they didn’t. They brought us supplies, and they brought us mules, and they helped us along generally, and hauled us out of tight corners. They’ve given us all we asked for, and more to it. And now they are going to pay the penalty, to reap our gratitude. They’re going to be left to themselves to fight our enemies–the fellows we couldn’t beat–single-handed, without experience, without a leader, and only half trained. They are going to be left as a human sacrifice to pay our debts.”

He paused, standing erect and tense, staring out into the blinding sunlight. Then suddenly, like the swift kindling of a flame, his attitude changed. He flung up his hands with a wild gesture.

“No, I’m damned!” he cried violently. “I’m damned if they shall! They are my men–the men I made. I’ve taught ’em every blessed thing they know. I’ve taught ’em to reverence the old flag, and I’m damned if I’ll see them betrayed! You can go back to the Chief, and tell him so! Tell him they’re British subjects, staunch to the backbone! Why, they can even sing the first verse of the National Anthem! You’ll hear them at it to-night before they turn in. They always do. It’s a sort of evening hymn to them. Oh, Monty, Monty, what cursed trick will our fellows think of next, I wonder? Are we men, or are we reptiles, we English? And we boast–we boast of our national honour!”

He broke off, breathing short and hard, as a man desperately near to collapse, and leaned his head on his arm against the rough wall as if in shame.

Herne glanced at him once or twice before replying.

“You see,” he said at length, speaking somewhat laboriously, “what we’ve got to do is to obey orders. We were sent out here not to think but to do. We’re on Government service. They are responsible for the thinking part. We have to carry it out, that’s all. They have decided to evacuate this district, and withdraw to the coast. So”–again he shrugged his shoulders–“there’s no more to be said. We must go.”