Chapter XLIII: Jim to the Fore

Cavalry transports were coming in every day now; the Varna beach looked like a country horse-fair, and to Jim was given the task of superintending the debarkation of the horses and their dispatch to their appointed places.

One day, when the great raft on which the horses were floated to the shore bumped up against the little pier, a nervous brown mare broke loose and jumped overboard. There happened to be no small boats close at hand, and the poor beast, white-eyed with terror at the shouts of the onlookers, struck out valiantly for the open sea.

To Jim, in the thinnest and oldest garments he possessed, and sweating heartily from his labours, an extra bath was but an additional enjoyment. He leaped aboard, ran nimbly along outside the horses, and launched himself after the snorting evader. His long swift side-stroke soon carried him alongside.

He soothed her with comforting words, turned her head shorewards, and presently rode her up the beach amid the bravos of the onlookers. It was little things like that that won the hearts of his men. They knew he would do as much and more for any one of them.

As he slipped off, with a final pat to the trembling beast, a hearty hand clapped his wet shoulder.

"Well done, old Jim! It was Carne taught you that, old man." And the voice of the gigantic dragoon, whose clap was still tingling in his shoulder, was the voice of George Herapath, though Jim had to look twice at his face to make sure of him.

"Why, you hairy man, I'd never have known you. Just got here?"

"This minute, my boy, and glad to see you old stagers still alive and kicking. Here's Harben. I say, Ralph, this dirty wet boy is our old Jim."

"Hanged if I'd have jumped into the sea after an old troop-horse," said Harben, looking somewhat distastefully at the dishevelled Jim.

"A horse is always a horse," said Jim, "and an extra bath's neither here nor there. Can't have too many this weather, if you work as I've been doing lately."

"Deucedly dirty work, it seems to me. Why don't you let your men do it? That's what they're here for."

"They are doing it," said Jim, waving a benedictory wet hand towards the horse-fair along the beach. "I'm only keeping an eye on them."

And before they could say more, a very splendidly accoutred horseman rode down to them, with a still more gorgeous one behind him.

"Very smartly done, my boy," said the first in English, though he wore the uniform of a colonel of Cuirassiers. "An officer that looks after his horses will certainly look after his men."

"Hello, sir!" jerked Jim. "Glad to see you again! Sorry I'm so dirty."

"It's the men who get dirty who do the work." And then he turned to the magnificent personage behind, who sat looking on with a suave smile on his clean-shaven face, and said in French, "This is one of my cubs, Your Highness, though I'll be crucified if I know which." And turning to Jim--"me see, now you're----"

"I'm Jim, sir. Jack's in the Engineers."

"Ah, yes--Jim. It was the Prince who bade me come down and thank you for saving that mare, and it was only when I heard your friend mention Carne that I recognised you. Monsieur----?" to the Prince, who addressed some remark to him in French, to which he laughingly replied, and then turned again to Jim.

"His Highness says he would like to see you cleaned up, and invites you to his table to-night--both of you, if you can come. I suppose you can fig out all right?"

Jim saluted Prince Napoleon and bowed.

"It is a great honour," he said. "I'll find Jack, sir, and we'll fig out all right."

"Eight o'clock, then. We're camped over there for the night. Any one will show you the Prince's quarters." And the two horsemen saluted generally and galloped away.

"You're in luck, old boy," said George. "Dining with princes and big-pots. Who's the other? He talks uncommonly good English for a Frenchman."

"My father," said Jim quietly.

"Your---- Good Lord! Well, I---- Yes, of course, now I remember."

"All the same," said Jim, "princes are not much in my line, and I'd just as soon he hadn't asked me."

"Man alive!" said Ralph, with exuberance. "Why, I'd give my little finger for the chance."

"And where's old Jack?" asked George.

"Up on the hill there behind the town."

"And where do we go?"

"You stop the night here and get on to Devna to-morrow. It's about twenty miles up-country."

Jack was mightily astonished when Jim gave him his news, and showed no modest reluctance in accepting the invitation.

"It's always interesting to meet people like that," he said. "Is he like the Emperor?"

"He's not like his pictures. More like the first Emperor, I should say. But he seemed pleasant enough."

"And our paternal?"

"He was all right. They seemed on very good terms with one another."

"And he really is as big a man as he led us to believe that night?"

"Why, yes, he seemed so. Did you doubt it?"

And so, all in their best, they duly presented themselves at the Prince's quarters a few minutes before eight, Jack, in his modest Engineer uniform, feeling somewhat overshadowed by Jim's gorgeous Hussar trappings.

"By Jove! but don't they know how to make themselves at home!" said Jack, as they came in sight of the handsome tent, with a great green bower made of leafy branches in front and an enclosure of the same all round it.

The sentries passed them in at once, and their father came out from the tent and met them with cordial, outstretched hands. He held both their hands for a moment, and looked from one to the other.

"Jack is the Engineer, and Jim is the Hussar, and both of you very creditable Carrons. We must get to know one another better, my boys. The coming campaign should afford us plenty of opportunities."

"Is there to be a campaign, then, sir?" asked Jack. "We'd about given up all hopes of it."

"Oh, we're not through yet by any means," smiled the Colonel.

"I don't know how it is with your men, sir, but all this dawdling about is doing ours no good."

"It is good for nobody, my boy, but we've got to obey orders, and those who pull the strings are far away. However, you need have no fear. The Tsar is far too stiff-necked to give way till he's had a good thrashing, and we have not only to fight him, but distance and climate to boot. Here is His Highness."

And when he introduced them, the Prince, with a smile at Jim, and a pat on the shoulder, told him he would certainly have had difficulty in recognising him again, and he was a "brave boy," which set the brave boy blushing furiously under his tan.

"They are grumbling at getting no fighting, Your Highness," said the Colonel.

"Young blood! Young blood!" said the Prince, with a smile. "Let us hope they will have plenty left when the fighting is over."

A number of other bravely dressed officers came in, and in the long green bower they sat down to a dinner such as they had not tasted for months, and of which they many times thought enviously in the lean months that followed.