Military life seemed to be composed of long periods of waiting for something to happen and then very intense sessions of wishing it hadn"t. Sitting on a stone shelf, hoping that no Russian would enter, Jack was aware of an occasional tremble underfoot.
"Can you feel that, sir?" Riley asked.
"That"s the artillery firing," Jack said. "Either theirs firing at us or ours at them; I don"t know which."
"Do you think the siege will last much longer, sir?"
Jack shook his head. "I really couldn"t say. The Navy took a pounding the other day when they tried to bombard the walls, so it may be longer than we expect."
They were quiet, listening to the rumble of the guns. Jack broke the tension with a direct question. "You were a public-school man, were you not, Riley?"
There was a moment"s hesitat
