"Ay, be God, they'd be better imployed than pullin' a poor man's thatch
about his ears."

"Or shootin' his brother, as they did mine."

"It was the Impire laid my groanin' mother by the wayside. Her son will
rot before he upholds it, and ye can put that in the charge-sheet in the
next coort-martial."

In vain the three officers begged, menaced, persuaded. The square was
still moving, ever moving, with the same bloody fight raging in its
entrails. Even while they had been speaking they had been shuffling
backwards, and the useless Gardner, with her slaughtered crew, was
already a good hundred yards from them. And the pace was accelerating.
The mass of men, tormented and writhing, was trying, by a common
instinct, to reach some clearer ground where they could re-form. Three
faces were still intact, but the fourth had been caved in, and badly
mauled, without its comrades being able to help it. The Guards had met
a fresh rush of the Hadendowas, and had blown back the tribesmen with a
volley, and the cavalry had ridden over another stream of them, as they
welled out of the gully. A litter of hamstrung horses, and haggled men
behind them, showed that a spearman on his face among the bushes can
show some sport to the man who charges him. But, in spite of all, the
square was still reeling swiftly backwards, trying to shake itself clear
of this torment which clung to its heart. Would it break or would it
re-form? The lives of five regiments and the honour of the flag hung
upon the answer.

Some, at least, were breaking. The C Company of the Mallows had lost
all military order, and was pushing back in spite of the haggard