Page:Life's Handicap - Kipling (1891).djvu/220

 This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under the bed-clothes.

'Be easy with him,' put in Egan from the next cot. 'He has got his chanst o' goin' clean. Listen Mulcahy, all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as a man shud. There's be heaps an' heaps of enemy-plenshus heaps. Go there an' do all you can and die decent. You'll die with a good name there. 'Tis not a hard thing considerin'.'

Again Mulcahy shivered.

'An' how could a man wish to die better than fightin',' added Dan consolingly.

'And if I won't,' said the corporal in a dry whisper.

'There'll be a dale of smoke,' returned Dan, sitting up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, 'sure to be, an' the noise of the firin' 'll be tremenjus, an' we'll be running about up and down, the regiment will. But we, Horse and I-we'll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe there'll be an accident.'

'It's playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity's sake let me go. I never did you harm, and—and I stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, don't be hard on me, Dan! You are-you were in it too. You won't kill me up there, will you?'

'I'm not thinkin' of the treason; though you shud be glad any honest boys drank with you. It's for the regiment. We can't have the shame o' you bringin' shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind an' live, with the women at the depôt-you that wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood dared to be! But we knew about your goin' to the doctor, for he told in mess, and it's all over the regiment.