"Hackett, who has been my soldier servant for the last five years,
was killed in the fight in the Kaiser Bagh. If you like, when you
rejoin, I shall apply for you in his stead. It will make your work
a good deal easier for you, and I should like to have the son of
one of my old tenants about me."

The man burst into tears.

"There, don't let's say anything more about it," Mallett went on,
taking the thin hand of the soldier in his. "We will consider it
settled, and I shall look out for you in a couple of months, so get
well as quick as you can, and don't worry yourself by thinking of
the past. I must be off now, for I have to take down a party of
convalescents to rejoin this evening.

"Goodbye, lad," and without waiting for any reply, he turned and
left the marquee.



Chapter 5.

"It is little more than two years and a half since I left,
Lechmere, but it seems almost a lifetime."

"It does seem a time, Major. We must have marched thousands of
miles, and I could not say how many times we have been engaged.
There has not been a week that we have not had a fight, and
sometimes two or three of them."