"If there was going to be a battle
we should very soon have an escort of cavalry to hurry us up. I've been
in fifteen, and I never saw one where they had not arranged for a
reporter's table."
"That's very well; but the enemy may be less considerate," said
Mortimer.
"They are not strong enough to force a battle."
"A skirmish, then?"
"Much more likely to be a raid upon the rear. In that case we are just
where we should be."
"So we are! What a score over Reuter's man up with the advance!
Well, we'll outspan and have our tiffin under the palms."
There were three of them, and they stood for three great London dailies.
Reuter's was thirty miles ahead; two evening pennies upon camels were
twenty miles behind. And among them they represented the eyes and ears
of the public--the great silent millions and millions who had paid for
everything, and who waited so patiently to know the result of their
outlay.
They were remarkable men these body-servants of the Press; two of them
already veterans in camps, the other setting out upon his first
campaign, and full of deference for his famous comrades.
This first one, who had just dismounted from his bay polo-pony, was
Mortimer, of the _Intelligence_--tall, straight, and hawk-faced, with
khaki tunic and riding-breeches, drab putties, a scarlet cummerbund, and
a skin tanned to the red of a Scotch fir by sun and wind, and mottled by
the mosquito and the sand-fly.
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