But Brown's idea of holding down a place was to make that place a
thorn in the side of the enemy. And since he did not know who was
the enemy, or where he was, nor why he was an enemy, nor when he
would attack, he proposed to find out these things for himself
preparatory to making the said enemy as uncomfortable as his meager
resources would permit, when eked out by an honest "dogged-does-it" brain.
He buried the three men whom Fate had seemed to value at the price
of a fakir's freedom. And, being a religious man, to whom religion
was a fact and the rest of the universe a theory, he was able to
say a full funeral service over them from memory. He said it at
the grave-end, with a lantern in his hand and one man facing him
across the grave--as the English used to drink when the Danes had
landed, each watching for the glint of steel beyond the other's shoulder.
And, four on each side of the trench that they had dug, the remainder
knelt and faced the night each way--partly from enforced piety, and
partly because eight men back to back, with their bayonets outward
and their butts against their knees, are an awkward proposition for
an enemy.
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