"
By the time that O'Grady returned with seven or eight other officers the
fire was blazing. Terence had managed to get a sufficient number of knives
and forks; there was, however, no table-cloth in the house. He and Terence
were cooking slices of ham on a gridiron over the fire.
"This is first-rate, O'Grady," Major Harrison said; "the place is crowded
down below, and we should have fared very badly if you had not managed to
get hold of this room."
"If some of the boys will see to the cooking, Major, I will go down with
Hoolan and get a barrel of wine and bring it up here; then we shall do
first-rate."
"How about the rations, Major?" Terence asked.
"They have just been served out. I sent my man down to draw the rations
for the whole wing at once, and told him to bring them up here."
"And I have told mine," Captain O'Driscol said, "to go round the village
and buy up two or three dozen chickens, if he can find them, and as many
eggs as he can collect. I think that we had better tell off two of the men
as cooks. I don't think it is likely that they will be able to get much
done that way below. Hoolan and another will do."
"I should think it best to keep Hoolan as forager; he is rather a genius
in that capacity. I think he has got round those two girls, whether by his
red hair or his insinuating manners I cannot say, but they seem ready to
do anything for him, and we shall want lots of things in the way of pots
and pans and so on.
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