udanese custom. This was granted, of course, and thus the exact
number killed was ascertained, but how many had been wounded no one
could tell.

"Fifty desolated homes!" remarked one of the men, when the number of
killed was announced at mess that day. He was a cynical, sour-visaged
man, who had just come out of hospital after a pretty severe illness.
"Fifty widows, may-hap," he continued, "to say nothin' o' child'n--that
are just as fond o' husbands an' fathers as _ours_ are!"

"Why, Jack Hall, if these are your sentiments you should never have
enlisted," cried Simkin, with a laugh.

"I 'listed when I was drunk," returned Hall savagely.

"Och, then, it sarves ye right!" said Flynn. "Even a pig would be
ashamed to do anythin' whin it was in liquor."

The corporal's remark prevented the conversation taking a lugubrious
turn, to the satisfaction of a few of the men who could not endure to
look at anything from a serious point of view.

"What's the use," one of them asked, "of pullin' a long face over what
you can't change? Here we are, boys, to kill or be killed. My creed
is, `Take things as they come, and be jolly!' It won't mend matters to
think about wives and child'n."

"Won't it?" cried Armstrong, looking up with a bright expression from a
sheet of paper, on which he had just been writing. "Here am I writin'
home to _my_ wife--in a hurry too, for I've only just heard that word
has been passed, the mail for England goes to-day. I'm warned for guard
to-night, too; an' if the night takes after the day we're in for a
chance o' suffocation, to say nothing o' insects--as you all know. Now,
won't it mend matters that I've got a dear girl over the sea to think
about, and to say `God bless her, body and soul?'"

"No doubt," retorted the take-things-as-they-come-and-be-jolly man,
"but--but--"

"But," cried Hall, coming promptly to his rescue, "have not the
Soudanese got wives an' children as well as us?"

"I daresay they have--some of 'em."

"Well, does the thought of your respective wives an' children prevent
your shooting or sticking each other when you get the chance?"

"Of course it don't!" returned Armstrong, with a laugh as he resumed his
pencil. "What would be the use o' comin' here if we didn't do that?
But I haven't time to argue with you just now, Hall. All I know is that
it's my duty to write to my wife, an' I won't let the chance slip when
I've got it."

"Bah!" exclaimed the cynic, religh