'The what, Mulvaney?'

'Fog av fightin'. You know, Sorr, that, like makin' love, ut takes
each man diff'rint. Now I can't help bein' powerful sick whin I'm in
action. Orth'ris, here, niver stops swearin' from ind to ind, an' the
only time that Learoyd opins his mouth to sing is whin he is messin'
wid other people's heads; for he's a dhirty fighter is Jock. Recruities
sometime cry, an' sometime they don't know fwhat they do, an' sometime
they are all for cuttin' throats an' such like dirtiness; but some men
get heavy-dead-dhrunk on the fightin'. This man was. He was staggerin',
an' his eyes were half shut, an' we cud hear him dhraw breath twinty
yards away. He sees the little orf'cer bhoy, an' comes up, talkin'
thick an' drowsy to himsilf. "Blood the young whelp!" he sez; "blood
the young whelp"; an' wid that he threw up his arms, shpun roun', an'
dropped at our feet, dead as a Paythan, an' there was niver sign or
scratch on him. They said 'twas his heart was rotten, but oh, 'twas
a quare thing to see!

'Thin we wint to bury our dead, for we wud not lave thim to the
Paythans, an' in movin' among the haythen we nearly lost that little
orf'cer bhoy. He was for givin' wan divil wather and layin' him aisy
against a rock. "Be careful, Sorr," sez I; "a wounded Paythan's worse
than a live wan." My troth, before the words was out of my mouth, the
man on the ground fires at the orf'cer bhoy lanin' over him, an' I saw
the helmit fly. I dropped the butt on the face av the man an' tuk his
pistol. The little orf'cer bhoy turned very white, for the hair av
half his head was singed away.

'"I tould you so, Sorr!" sez I; an', afther that, whin he wanted to