I think you have done us all good. One doesn't care when one is retreating
for a good reason, but when one marches for twelve days to meet an enemy,
and then, when just close to him, one turns one's back and runs away, it
is enough to disgust an Englishman, let alone an Irishman. Well, boys, now
we see it is all right, we will do our duty as well on the retreat as we
did on the advance, and divil a grumble shall there be in my hearing."

From that moment, therefore, the Mayo Fusiliers were an example to the
brigade. Any grumble in the ranks was met with a cheerful "Whist, boys! do
you think that you know the general's business better than he does
himself? It is plenty of fighting you are likely to get before you have
done, never fear. Now is the time, boys, to get the regiment a good name.
The general knows that we can fight. Now let him see that we can wait
patiently till we get another chance. Remember, the better temper you are
in, the less you will feel the cold."

So, laughing and joking, and occasionally breaking into a song, the Mayo
Fusiliers pushed steadily forward, and the colonel that evening
congratulated the men that not one had fallen out.

"Keep that up, boys," he said. "It will be a proud day for me when we get
to our journey's end, wherever that may be, to be able to say to the
brigadier: 'Except those who have been killed by the enemy, here is my
regiment just as it was when it started from the Carrion--not a man has
fallen out, not a man has straggled away, not a man has made a baste of
himself and was unfit to fall in the next morning.' I know them," he said
to O'Driscol, as the regiment was dismissed from parade. "They will not
fall out, they will not straggle, but if they come to a place where wine's
in plenty, they will make bastes of themselves; and after all," he added,
"after the work they have gone through, who is to blame them?"