"Won't you hold my horse's bridle a minute, young man, while I use my glasses?" he asked coolly.
Ned's trembling hand caught the reins as a drowning man a straw. The act steadied his shaking nerves. As the Colonel slowly lowered his glasses Ned cried through chattering teeth:
"D-d-d-on't y-you think—I-I-I—am d-d-doing p-pretty well, C-colonel, f-f-f-for my f-f-ffirst battle?"
The Colonel nodded encouragingly:
"Very well, my boy. It's a nasty situation. You'll make a good soldier."
And then the order to charge!
Across the level field torn by shot and shell, the regiment swept in grey waves. The gaps filled up silently. They started up the hill and met the sleet of hissing death. The hill top blazed streams of yellow flame through the pall of smoke. Men were falling—not one by one, but in platoons and squads, rolling into heaps of grey blood-soaked flesh and rags. The regiment paused, staggered, reeled and rallied.
Haggerty fell just in front of Ned, who was loading and firing with the precision of a machine. If he had a soul—he didn't know it now. The men were ordered to lie down and fire from the ground.
Haggerty caught Ned's eye as it glanced along his musket searching for his foe through the cloud of blue black smoke that veiled the world.
"Roll me around, Bye," the Irishman cried, "and make a fince out of me—I'm done for."