Alighting from their train, Duff and his men stood amazed, aghast, gazing upon the scene before them. Duff climbed a wagon wheel and surveyed the crowd packing the street in front of the bulletin boards.
“No use, this way, boys. We'll have to go around. Come on.”
They went on. Up side streets and lanes, through back yards and shops they went until at length they emerged within a hundred yards of the recruiting office.
“Boys, we'll have to bluff them,” he said. “You're a party of recruits that Col. Kavanagh expects. You've been sent for. I'm bringing you in under orders. Look as much like soldiers as you can, and bore in like hell. Come on!”
They began to bore. At once there was an uproar, punctuated with vociferous and varied profanity.
“Here, let me pass,” he shouted into the backs of men's heads. “I'm on duty here. I must get through to Colonel Kavanagh. Keep up there, men; keep your line! Stand back, please! Make way!”
His huge bulk, distorted face and his loud and authoritative voice startled men into temporary submission, and before they could recover themselves he and his little company of hard-boring men were through.
Twenty-five yards from the recruiting office a side rush of the crowd caught them.
“They've smashed the barricades,” a boy from a telegraph pole called out.
Duff and his men fought to hold their places, but they became conscious of a steady pressure backwards.
“What's doing now, boy?” shouted Duff to the urchin clinging to the telegraph pole.
“The fusileers--they are sticking their bayonets into them.”
Before the line of bayonets the crowd retreated slowly, but Duff and his company held their ground, allowing the crowd to ebb past them, until they found themselves against the line of bayonets.
“Let me through here, sergeant, with my party,” said Duff. “I'm under orders of Colonel Kavanagh.”
The sergeant, an old British army man, looked them over.
“Have you an order, sir--a written order, I mean?”
“No,” said Duff. “I haven't, but the colonel expects us. He is waiting for me now.”
“Sorry, sir,” replied the sergeant, “my orders are to let no one through without a written pass.”
Duff argued, stormed, threatened, swore; but to no purpose. The N. C. O. knew his job.
