"
"You can't go without orders, I suppose?"
Captain Brookfield shook his head. "We are just as much under orders as
the regular troops are, and it would be a serious matter indeed to fly
in the face of his repeated orders on this subject." The farmer made a
gesture of despair.
"Captain Brookfield," Chris said, speaking for the first time, "I think
that by the terms of our enlistment in your corps we were to be allowed
to take our discharge whenever we asked for it?"
"That was so, Chris, but--"
"Then I beg now, sir, to tender our resignation from the present
moment."
"But Chris, you have but twenty men, and by what Searle says, there are
sixty or seventy of them."
"Of whom ten or so have been killed. Well, sir, we have fought against
nearly a hundred before now, and got the best of it; besides, we shall
have the help of the little party shut up. However, now that we have
resigned, that is our affair. I suppose that if we rejoin you, you will
have no objection to re-enlist us?"
Captain Brookfield smiled. "I should have no objection certainly, Chris,
but General Buller might have."
"I don't suppose he will know of our having been away, sir; he has
plenty more serious things to think of than the numerical strength of
your troop, and as the news of a skirmish some thirty miles north of
Greytown is not likely to be reported in the papers, or at any rate to
attract his attention, I don't think you need trouble yourself on that
score.
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