Or perhaps (Oswald thought this, and it made his blood at once boil and freeze, which our uncle had told us was possible, but only in India), perhaps he thought that Maidstone was already as good as taken and it didn't matter what he said.

While Oswald was debating within his intellect what to say next, and how to say it so as to discover as many as possible of the enemy's dark secrets, Noel said-- 'How did you get here?
You weren't here yesterday at tea-time.' The soldier gave the pot another sandy rub, and said-- 'I daresay it does seem quick work--the camp seems as if it had sprung up in the night, doesn't it ?--like a mushroom.' Alice and Oswald looked at each other, and then at the rest of us.

The words 'sprung up in the night' seemed to touch a string in every heart.
'You see,' whispered Noel, 'he won't tell us how he came here.

NOW, is it humbug or history ?' Oswald, after whisperedly requesting his young brother to dry up and not bother, remarked, 'Then you're an invading army ?' 'Well,' said the soldier, 'we're a skeleton battalion, as a matter of fact, but we're invading all right enough.' And now indeed the blood of the stupidest of us froze, just as the quick-witted Oswald's had done earlier in the interview.

Even H.O.
opened his mouth and went the colour of mottled soap; he is so fat that this is the nearest he can go to turning pale.