Page:Angels of Mons second edition.pdf/120

 native sergeant he had a sort of lingo that he thought was English all right, and I could understand what he was driving at more or less, as you may say. I liked to listen to him when he got to his swear-words. I never heard the like. 'By Harris!' he'd say, as if he were talking of a Welshman, and then it would be 'By cloud-gathering Zoos,' and 'rosy-fingered dawn child of the morn,' and I don't know what else. He could curse. He was worse than old 'Damn-my-blanky-guts' in the Artillery."

The chaplain gasped. And he stared very straight at the soldier, having seen, as the soldier's friend might have put it, many cities of men. He knew, too, that the best of soldiers are not always the bond slaves of the truth.