"Oh, you can fight and win battles, just as you can do pretty nearly anything else you make up your minds to do--regardless of cost. But with us the army is a science--an exact science almost--and every single detail is worked out on the most scientific lines. You only need to look round you to see the difference. England is never ready because she is not by nature a fighting nation. Her army rusts along, and then when the sudden call comes you have got to brace up and win through--or muddle through--at any cost, and the cost is generally frightful. The men and money you have wasted--absolutely wasted--in your wars do not bear thinking of." "I'm afraid it's true, sir. And we don't seem to learn much by experience. I suppose it comes from having sea-frontiers instead of land. You have to _be_ ready. We always have to _get_ ready." "And how about the horses, Jim?" he asked. "I'm told you manage to get more than we do. That's one for you, my boy." "We pay cash, sir. You pay in paper promises, and a man a hundred miles away will sooner part for gold than for paper." "Truly; I would myself. Do you lose many _en route?_" "Not two per cent, sir. Some of them are pretty wild, and they make a bolt at times, but it adds to the fun, and we nearly always get them back. Did you see Nolan's Arabs?" "I saw them--beauties. The Prince wanted to buy two or three, but I dissuaded him. They're too delicate for a winter campaign. That big brown of yours, that Deseret gave you, is worth four of them--as far as work is concerned." "You think we're in for a winter campaign, sir?" asked Jack eagerly. "No doubt about it, I think. We've got to do something before we go home--some of us. Our coming up here has cleared the Russians off the Danube, but our dawdling here has given them every chance of strengthening themselves in the Crimea. The biggest thing they have there is Sebastopol, on which they have squandered money. Therefore I think it will be Sebastopol, and anything but an easy job." "We shall get our chance, then," sparkled Jack. "We did a bit at Gallipoli, but a real big siege would be grand." "I hope your commissariat will play up better then, or we shall have to feed you," said the Colonel, with a smile. He liked to draw them out and get their views on men and things, and watched them keenly the while, but all his watching brought him not one whit nearer a solution of the problem of Carne than had Charles Eager's and Sir Denzil's. In the course of one such talk, however, they made a discovery and received a shock which knocked the wind out of them. Their father was delightfully open and frank with them as regards the past, and it drew their liking.