'If you'd on'y a-stayed at the Depot--where you _ought_ to ha' bin--you could get as many of 'em as--as you dam please,' whimpered Cris, putting up her mouth.
'It's 'ard, Cris. I grant you it's 'ard. But what's a man to do? If I'd a-stayed at the Depot, you wouldn't think anything of me.'
'Like as not, but I'd 'ave you with me, Piggy. An' all the thinkin' in the world isn't like kissin'.'
'An' all the kissin' in the world isn't like 'avin' a medal to wear on the front o' your coat.'
'Oh yus, I shall though. Me an' Jakin are the only acting-drummers that'll be took along. All the rest is full men, an' we'll get our medals with them.'
'They might ha' taken anybody but you, Piggy. You'll get killed--you're so venturesome. Stay with me, Piggy darlin', down at the Depot, an' I'll love you true for ever.'
'Ain't you goin' to do that _now_, Cris? You said you was.'
'O' course I am, but th' other's more comfortable. Wait till you've growed a bit, Piggy. You aren't no taller than me now.'
[Illustration: Cris slid an arm round his neck.--P. 47.]
'I've bin in the Army for two years an' I'm not goin' to get out of a chanst o' seein' service, an' don't you try to make me do so. I'll come back, Cris, an' when I take on as a man I'll marry you--marry you when I'm a Lance.'
Lew reflected on the future as arranged by Jakin a short time previously, but Cris's mouth was very near to his own.
'I won't 'old you back no more, Piggy. Go away an' get your medal, an' I'll make you a new button-bag as nice as I know how,' she whispered.
'Put some o' your 'air into it, Cris, an' I'll keep it in my pocket so long's I'm alive.'
Then Cris wept anew, and the interview ended.
Public feeling among the drummer-boys rose to fever pitch and the lives of Jakin and Lew became unenviable. Not only had they been permitted to enlist two years before the regulation boy's age--fourteen--but, by virtue, it seemed, of their extreme youth, they were allowed to go to the Front--which thing had not happened to acting-drummers within the knowledge of boy. The Band which was to accompany the Regiment had been cut down to the regulation twenty men, the surplus returning to the ranks. Jakin and Lew were attached to the Band as supernumeraries, though they would much have preferred being Company buglers.