“Course I am! Why, you’ve only been about a year in the regiment.”
“Yes, about a year.”
“Well,” cried the boy triumphantly, “I was born in it, so I’m just as old a soldier as I am years old. You needn’t mind shooting as many of them as you can. They are the King’s enemies, and it is your duty to. Don’t the song say, ‘God save the King?’ Well, every British soldier has got to help and kill as many enemies as he can. But I say, we are going to fight for the Spanish King, then? Well, all right; he’s our King’s friend. But where is he now? I haven’t seen anything of him this morning. I hope he hasn’t run away and left us to do the fighting.”
“Oh no,” said Pen, “I don’t think so. Our smuggler friend said we were surrounded by the French.”
“Surrounded, eh?” cried Punch. “So much the better! Won’t matter which way we fire then, we shall be sure to bring some one down. Glad you think the Spanish King ain’t run away though. If I was a king I know what I should do, comrade,” continued Punch, nursing his musket and giving it an affectionate rub and pat here and there. “Leg hurt you, comrade?”
“No, only now and then,” said Pen, smiling. “But what would you do if you were a king?”
“Lead my army like a man.”
“Nonsense! What are the generals for?”
“Oh, you would want your generals, of course, and the more brave generals the King has—like Sir Arthur Wellesley—the better. I say, he’s an Irishman, isn’t he?”
“Yes, I believe so,” replied Pen.