He had been puzzled by something familiar in the voice, and now he recognized the man, and had no wish to meet him.

He was too late in hitching his chair back into the shadow, for Benson had seen him and stopped with an excited cry.
"Blake of the sappers! Want to cut your old friendsh?
Whatsh you doing here ?" "It's a mutual surprise, Benson," Blake replied.
Benson, holding on by a chair back, smiled at him genially.
"Often wondered where you went to after you left Peshawur, old man.
Though you got the sack for it, it wasn't your fault the ghazees broke our line that night.

Said so to the Colonel--can see him now, sitting there, looking very sick and cut up, and Bolsover, acting adjutant, blinking like an owl." "Be quiet!" Blake commanded in alarm, for the man had been a lieutenant of native infantry when they had met on the hill campaign.
Benson, however, was not to be deterred.
"This gentleman old friend of mine; never agreed with solemn old Colonel, but they wouldn't listen to me.

Very black night in India; ghazees coming yelling up the hill; nothing would stop 'em.

Rifles cracking, Nepalese comp'ny busy with the bayonet; and in the thick of it the bugle goes----" Raising a hand to his mouth, he gave a shrill imitation of the call to cease firing, and then lost his balance and fell over the chair with a crash.
"Leave him to me," said Gardner, seizing the fallen man and with some difficulty lifting him to his feet.