"What's the use of plaguin'' the man? One shot pays for all. Sleep
ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?"

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all
save that ever at his elbow, in camp or at parade, stood two big
men with soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse
thing should happen - to die for the honour of the regiment in
decency among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He
remembered certain things that priests had said in his infancy,
and his mother - not the one at New York - starting from her sleep
with shrieks to pray for a husband's soul in torment. It is well
to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak
human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and if
that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, the death he
would have to face would be physically painful. Most conspirators
have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself, as he lay on
the earth in the night, dying by various causes. They were all
horrible; the mother in New York was very far away, and the
Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you
forward whether you will or won't, was daily coming closer to the
enemy!

They were brought to the field of MarzunKatai, and with the Black
Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never been set down
in the newspapers. In response, many believe, to the fervent
prayers of Father Dennis, the enemy not only elected to fight in
the open, but made a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish
mothers knew later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across
the open in shouting masses, and were pot-valiant in artillery. It
was expedient to hold a large reserve and wait for the