' It made me crawl all up my backbone,
not havin' taken my brequist. Thin, right smash into our rear,
came fwhat was left av the Jock Elliotts - wid four pipers an' not
half a kilt among thim, playin' for the dear life, an' swingin'
their rumps like buck rabbits, an' a native rig'mint shrieking
blue murther. Ye niver heard the like. There was men cryin' like
women that did - an' faith I do not blame thim. Fwhat bruk me down
was the Lancers' Band - shinin' an' spick like angels, wid the
ould dhrum-horse at the head an' the silver kettle-dhrums an' all
an' all, waitin' for their men that was behind us. They shtruck up
the Cavalry Canter, an', begad, those poor ghosts that had not a
sound fut in a throop they answered to ut, the men rockin' in
their saddles. We thried to cheer them as they wint by, but ut
came out like a big gruntin' cough, so there must have been many
that was feelin' like me. Oh, but I'm forgettin'! The Fly-by-
Nights was waitin' for their second battalion, an' whin ut came
out, there was the Colonel's horse led at the head - saddle-empty.
The men fair worshipped him, an' he'd died at Au Musjid on the
road down. They waited till the remnint av the battalion was up,
and thin - clane against ordhers, for who wanted that chune that
day? - they wint back to Peshawur slow-time an' tearin' the bowils
out av ivry man that heard, wid 'The Dead March.
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