All were intent on their own concerns.

I sat down on the carriage of the nearest gun and looked about me.
The company was such as one would have looked for on a ship of the Republic--coarse and free in its manners, and loud of talk.

They were probably most of them pressed men, not more than one day out, and looked on me only as a belated one of themselves.

There was--for the moment at all events--little show of discipline.

They all talked at once, and wrangled and argued, and seemed constantly on the point of blows; but it all went off in words, and no harm was done.