How could such fellows as these fight for honour and truth? Some of them seemed to have no sense of honour or decency. He saw presently, however, that even these, who were not by any means representative of the whole, had far higher standards than he had at first thought. They were coarse, and some times brutal, but they were kind to their pals, and would put themselves to any trouble to do another chap a good turn.
One night it was very cold, although it had been very warm during the day. They had all been drilling hard, and were dog-tired. One of the men was evidently very seedy. He complained of a sick headache, and he was shivering with the cold.
"Jist orful, Bill. Gawd, I wish I was 'ome. The graand is so ---- hard too, and I'm as sore as if some one had been a-beatin' me with a big stick."
"Ere mitey, you just 'ave my blanket. I don't want it. And let me mike my old overcoat into a bit of a pillow for yer."
"You are bloomin' kind, Bill, and I don't like----"
"Oh, stow it, it's nothink. Anything you'd like, mitey?"
"Come, out with it you ----. Wot is it? Shall I fetch the doctor?"
"Ee ain't no use! besides, you'd get into a ---- row if you went to him now. When I wos 'ome and like this my mother used to go to a chemist and git me some sweet spirits of nitre, and it always made me as right as a trivet. But there ain't no such ---- luck 'ere."
"Wot yer call it? Sweet spirits o' mitre? Never 'eerd on it afore. 'Ow do you tike it?"
"Oh, you just puts it in 'ot water; but there, I can't 'ave it. Good night, Bill, and thank you for the blanket."
Bill, without a word, tired as he was, left the tent, and half an hour afterwards returned with the medicine.
"Gawd, Bill," said the sick man, "but you ain't a ----"
"Not so much chin music. There, tike it, and go to sleep."
Such little acts of kindness as these were constantly taking place, and they were by no means confined to men who belonged to the better-class but were more frequently seen among the roughest and coarsest.
Bob found out, too, that there was a rough sense of honour among them. Some of them seemed to revel in filthy language, but if a man did a mean thing, or didn't play the game according to their standard, he was in for a bad time. Indeed, he soon found out that, in a certain sense, the same code of honour which prevailed at Clifton, with exceptions, operated in this newly-formed camp.