So I have served under three flags since war was declared, and at last—at last I am under my own!
GUNNER'S MATE M'QUIRE
SPEAKS:
"ABANDON SHIP!"
Me father was always talkin' about the old country. Sure and he said there was nothin' in the whole of America to compare with a corner of County Cork! We kids used to poke fun at him, but I'm confessin' it made us kinder hanker to see that land ourselves.
He was after claimin' that the grass was greener there than anywhere else on earth and the sky bluer. As a kid I planned to run away and ship over there just to see if the old man was givin' it to us straight. But it was to Canada I drifted, and, because I have more inches than most men, the Northwest Mounted sent me an engraved invitation askin' me to join them, which I did for six years.
Sure, it's a great way to spend your days, ridin' through snow and ice or mud and mosquitoes—accordin' to the season—after the gang of outlaws runnin' loose up there. But it was always worryin', the wife was, for fear I couldn't shoot quick enough and they'd get the drop on me. She'd tell me that it was the kid she was considerin'—she wasn't wantin' to bring him up without a father. She'd say he was too big a handful for her to manage, then get around me by claimin' he was a chip off the old block all right—all right.