"
"I think that mysel', but there is no answering for these brown-skin
chaps. Still, maybe it is the fault of the officers as well as the men."
"It will be a rare game anyhow, Macwitty. At any rate I will do my best to
get the fellows into order. He is a fine young officer, and a thorough
gentleman, and no mistake. He goes about it all as if he had been
accustomed to command two regiments all his life, and these Portuguese
fellows seem to have taken to him wonderfully. At any rate it will be a
thing for us to talk about all our lives--how we were majors for a bit,
and fought the French on our own account."
"Yes, if we get home to tell about it," Macwitty said, cautiously. "I
dinna think we can reckon much on that yet. It is a desperate sort of a
business, and he is ower young to command."
"I would rather have a young officer than an old one," Bull said,
carelessly; "and though he is Irish, I feel sure that he has got his head
screwed on the right way. Look how well he managed last night. Why, an old
general could not have done better. If he hadn't caught those three
fellows in a trap, I doubt whether we should have got out of the scrape.
Sixteen or seventeen men against over two thousand is pretty long odds. We
should have accounted for a lot of them, but they would have done for us
in the end.
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