“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.”

He paused, and glanced again at the slight, khaki-clad figure that leaned against the wall.

After a moment, meeting with no response, he resumed.

“There’s no sense in taking it hard, since there is no help for it.  You always knew that it was an absolutely temporary business.  Of course, if we could have smashed the Wandis, these chaps would have had a better look-out.  But—­well, we haven’t smashed them.”

“We hadn’t enough men!” came fiercely from Duncannon.

“True!  We couldn’t afford to do things on a large scale.  Moreover, it’s a beastly country, as even you must admit.  And it isn’t worth a big struggle.  Besides, we can’t occupy half the world to prevent the other half playing the deuce with it.  Come, Bobby, don’t be a fool, for Heaven’s sake!  You’ve been treated as a god too long, and it’s turned your head.  Don’t you want to get Home?  What about your people?  What about——­”