THE WOULDBEGOODS
noitring, 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.
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