‘If you’ve made a mistake, you scoundrel, I’ll try you by court-martial,’ said the colonel. ‘You’d better both mount and scour round to see if you can find the artillery. They must have kept to the left-hand road when we took the right, and they can’t be far off. If you find them tell the officer in command to follow us as quickly as he can. Failing that, rejoin your regiments, or any of the other parties who are searching the forest for the road we ought to have followed.’ Jack and Larry at once mounted and spurred off. Jack, who had a very good idea of localities, struck away to the left. They rode sharply for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, then they heard a rumble of wheels. ‘That sounds like guns,’ cried Larry. ‘We’ll soon see,’ said Jack, and he slid from Dainty and laid his ear against the ground. ‘You’re right, Larry,’ he said; ‘it is guns. Away we go.’ They went at a trot, the sound, however, having stopped. Presently they saw by the increasing light in front of them that they were nearing a road. They heard voices, spurred forward, and in a few seconds were in the lane. ‘It’s the guns,’ said Jack; ‘the officer in command will be near the head of the column.’ He turned into the narrow lane, when he saw a group of officers, not in the blue-and-gold of the artillery, but in scarlet and cocked hats. ‘The staff, by all that’s howly!’ murmured Larry. ‘Lord Raglan himself,’ said Jack in hardly audible tones, fixing his eyes on a white-haired, one-armed man dressed in a blue frock, who with no very pleased expression on his face rode in the centre of a group of officers. The trumpeters sat rigidly in their saddles, and dropped their right hands behind their thighs in salute. ‘Where do you come from and where are your regiments?’ asked the commander-in-chief sternly, and by these words the youths knew that the great man was exceedingly displeased. CHAPTER XXVIII. LARRY WINS DISTINCTION. Larry O’Callaghan ventured to reply, ‘Plase, yer honour--I mane me lordship--we’re lookin’ for the artillery.’ ‘By whose orders?’ ‘The colonel’s, yer honour.’ ‘Explain this. Where is your regiment?’ ‘Comin’ on, me lord. There’s a convoy of Rooshians ahead, an’ we’re goin’ to cut ’em to pieces, an’---- ‘I know all about the convoy. Ride off to your regiments as hard as you can and guide them here. I will hear your explanations later.--Captain Wilson, gallop back and fetch up my escort of Hussars.’ Without waiting for another word, the trumpeters turned their horses’ heads and re-entered the forest. ‘His lordship’s in a rage,’ said Jack, as he and Larry went back as hard as they could towards the cavalry column. ‘An’ our officers’ll get a rap over the knuckles for this, I’m thinkin’,’ said Larry. ‘We’ll hurry ’em up,’ said Jack, and seizing his bugle he sounded his regimental call several times.