Canada -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Canada -- Fiction
But Ethel was more engaged with the appearance of the battalion, from
the ranks of which she continued to pick out the faces of her friends.
“Look,” she cried, “that surely is not Kellerman! It is! It is! Look,
Jane, there's that little Jew. Is it possible?”
“Kellerman?” cried Jane. “No, it can't be he. There are no Jews in the
Ninetieth.”
“But it is,” cried Ethel. “It is Kellerman. Let us go up to Broadway and
we shall meet them again.”
They turned up a cross street and were in time to secure a position
from which they could get a good look at the faces of the lads as they
passed. The battalion was marching at attention, and so rigid was
the discipline that not a face was turned toward the two young ladies
standing at the street corner. A glance of the eye and a smile they
received from their friends as they passed, but no man turned his head.
“There he is,” said Jane. “It is Kellerman--in the second row, see?”
“Sure enough, it is Kellerman,” said Ethel. “Well, what has come to
Winnipeg?”
“War,” said Jane solemnly. “And a good many more of the boys will be
going too, if they are any good.”
As Kellerman came stepping along he caught sight of the girls standing
there, but no sign of recognition did he make. He was too anxious to
be considered a soldier for that. Steadiness was one of the primary
principles knocked into the minds of recruits by the Sergeant Major.
The girls moved along after the column had passed at a sufficient
distance to escape the rabble. At the drill hall they found the street
blocked by a crowd of men, women and children.
“What is all this, I wonder?” said Ethel. “Let us wait here awhile.
Perhaps we may come across some one we know.”
It was a strange crowd that gathered about the entrance to the drill
hall, not the usual assemblage of noisy, idly curious folk of the
lighter weight that are wont to follow a marching battalion or gather
to the sound of a band. It was composed of substantial and solid people,
serious in face and quiet in demeanour. They were there on business, a
business of the gravest character. As the girls stood waiting they heard
far down Broadway the throbbing of drums.
“Listen, Ethel,” cried Jane. “The Pipes!”
“The Pipes!” echoed Ethel in great excitement. “The Kilties!”
Above the roll and rattle of the drums they caught those high,
heart-thrilling sounds which for nearly two hundred years have been
heard on every famous British battlefield, and which have ever led
Scotland's sons down the path of blood and death to imperishable glory.
A young Ninetieth officer, intent on seeing that the way was kept clear
for the soldiers, came striding out of the armoury.
“Oh, there's Frank Smart,” said Ethel. “I wish he would see us.”
As if in answer to her wish, Smart turned about and saw them in the
crowd. Immediately he came to them.
“I didn't know you were a soldier, Frank,” said Jane, greeting him with
a radiant smile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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