To be sure he was an officer now, and I a small bugler: still, without compromising himself, he might (I felt) have spoken more kindly.
The fatigue party descended, the tents were brought up and distributed, and at a silent signal sprang up and expanded like lines of mushrooms.

The camp was formed; and the 52nd, in high good humour, opened their haversacks and fell to their breakfast.
The meal over, the men lit their pipes and stretched themselves within the tents to make up arrears of sleep.

It does not take a boy long to learn how to snatch a nap even on half-thawed turf packed with moisture, and to manage it without claiming much room.

We were eleven in our tent, not counting the sergeant--who had gone off on some errand which he did not explain, but which interested the men sufficiently to keep them awake for a while discussing it in low voices.
I was at once too shy to ask questions and too sleepy to listen attentively.

Here was war, I told myself, and I was in it.
To be sure, I had not yet seen a shot fired, nor--save for the infrequent boom of a gun beyond the hill--had I heard one: and yet all my ideas of war were undergoing a change.