42 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
is to say, civilly and with all the power of 
prompt obedience he had in him. 
And as the weeks wore by and Furleigh’s 
efficiency increased, the regiment began to 
perceive the change in him. Men who had 
scorned him a month ago now shared their 
tobacco with him and slapped him on the 
back ; men who had objected to sleeping in 
the next cot to him now sat on his bed and 
talked to him ; and officers who had cast him 
prev ously for every conceivable form of 
fatigue, began to watch him now from another 
point of view. Six months later he was made 
lance-corporal. When war broke out and 
the regiment was ordered overseas, he was a 
corporal already. And when the regiment 
reached South Africa and the shifting and 
confusion of campaign had begun, Furleigh 
was sergeant-signaller. Copeland was second 
lieutenant still, and likely to remain one ; 
Furleigh’s behaviour had got on his nerves, 
and he was silent and morose and distrusted 
and unpopular. 
III. 
A signaller has bis full share of all the hard 
work that may be going, and positively no 
glory whatever, at the stage of a war when 
crawling columns are evolving out of chaos 
and the skyline is rendered hazy with the 
dust of manoeuvring brigades. Furleigh sat, 
or stood, and sweated at his helio while every- 
body lost his temper, and nobody knew for 
ten consecutive minutes who was which, nor 
who commanded what, nor what orders were, 
nor why. And during that time he saw little 
or nothing of Second-lieutenant Copeland. 
But all this while Copeland was exercising 
influence ; and because his regiment had no 
use for him, every application that he made 
for a transfer to some other detail was warmly 
seconded by his colonel ; and in the end some- 
body commanding found time to scrawl his 
signature across a piece of paper that sent 
Copeland hurrying to the front. 
Furleigh went too, but for other reasons. 
An order had come down from the fighting- 
line that the most efficient signallers should 
be sent forward immediately ; and the first 
to go was the man who had toiled from day- 
light until dusk ever since he landed, and 
had made himself and proved himself the 
most accurate and quickest signaller at the 
base. The same train took both of them. 
Copeland travelled first-class, in a carriage 
reserved for the use of officers ; he went on 
importunity and influence. Furleigh went 
in an open truck, in among the cartridge- 
boxes, sent forward on his merits. 
Copeland, out on the platform to stretch 
himself at a wayside station, beheld Furleigh 
sprawling in the truck and cursed the sight of 
him. Furleigh saw him too, but took no 
notice. And then, after an almost inter- 
minable journey, the train disgorged them at 
the front, and once again they lost sight of 
one another for a while. 
They went under fire together the next 
time that they met ; and then the crisis came. 
Copeland commanded a little body of scouts, 
some five-and-twenty of them, who had orders 
to push forward and get in touch with a sup- 
posed-to-be-retreating enemy. And along 
with the outfit marched Sergeant Furleigh, 
smoking his pipe contentedly beside a mule 
that bore the helio. In front were the five- 
and-twenty, spread out like furlong posts 
across the veldt. Fifty paces or more behind 
them, and at an equal distance from either 
end of the extended line, walked Copeland, 
and behind him, two hundred yards or more, 
came Furleigh. 
They reached a river, where the only ford 
was overlooked by jagged kopjes. There 
the scouts lay down and watched a while. 
Nothing moved on the far side and there 
were no signs of any enemy, so Copeland 
gave an order, and one by one, with their 
rifles held above their heads, the scouts 
crossed over. On the far side they lay down 
in a cluster and waited for their officer. Then 
Furleigh led the mule across, and Copeland 
rode it, cursing because the water wetted 
his legs, for every now and then the mule 
stumbled or put a foot wrong, and he had to 
sit cross-saddle in order to keep his seat. 
When they reached the far side, one of 
the scouts reported having seen a man’s 
head on the near horizon, it had bobbed up 
for a second and disappeared again. Only 
one had seen it, but he was positive 
that he had not been mistaken. Copeland 
turned to Furleigh. 
“ D’you see that little kopje over there ? 
The one with the hollow on this side of it ? ” 
“ Yes, sir,” said Furleigh. 
“ Well, take your helio there, and set it 
up. If the enemy do happen to be in front, 
you’ll be under cover and out of their sight. 
I suppose you can signal the rear from 
there ? ” 
Furleigh glanced upward at the sun. 
“ Yes, sir,” he said. 
“ Go ahead, then, and stand by in readiness 
tj signal.” 
Furleigh led off the mule, leading him 
along in the shallow water below the river- 
bank until lie had the kopje he was aiming 
