"I hope in any case, Major, that we shan't follow the line Havelock
took through the narrow streets, for there we cannot use our
strength; but will manage to approach the Residency from some other
direction. We know that it stands near the river, and at the very
edge of the town, so there ought to be some other way of getting at
it. I consider that we are a match for any number of these
scoundrels if we do but get a fair ground for fighting, which we
certainly should not do in the streets of the town."

"I don't care how it is, so that we do get at them," another
officer said. "We have heard such frightful details of their
atrocities as we came up that one is burning to get at close
quarters with them. I suppose we shall go to the Alumbagh first,
and relieve the force that has so long been shut up there. I only
hope that we shan't be chosen to take their place."

There was a general exclamation of disgust at the suggestion.

"Well, someone must stay, you know," he went on in deprecation of
the epithets hurled at him; "and why not our regiment as well as
any other?"

"Because I cannot believe that after luck has favoured us so long
she will play us such a trick now," Frank Mallett said. "Besides,
the other regiments have done something in the way of fighting
already while we have not fired a shot; and I think that Sir Colin
would be more likely to choose the 75th, or, in fact, any of the
other regiments than us. Still if the worst comes to the worst we
must not grumble. Other regiments have had weary times of waiting,
and it may be our turn now. Your suggestion has come as a damper to