anything to engage.

The Twelfth had no record of foreign service, and it could hardly be
said that it had served as a unit in the great civil war, when His
Majesty the King had whipped the Pretender. At that time the regiment
had suffered from two opinions, so that it was impossible for either
side to depend upon it. Many men had deserted to the standard of the
Pretender, and a number of officers had drawn their swords for him. When
the King, a thorough soldier, looked at the remnant, he saw that they
lacked the spirit to be of great help to him in the tremendous battles
which he was waging for his throne. And so this emaciated Twelfth was
sent off to a corner of the kingdom to guard a dockyard, where some of
the officers so plainly expressed their disapproval of this policy that
the regiment received its steadfast name, the Kicking Twelfth.

At the time of which I am writing the Twelfth had a few veteran officers
and well-bitten sergeants; but the body of the regiment was composed of
men who had never heard a shot fired excepting on the rifle-range. But
it was an experience for which they longed, and when the moment came for
the corps' cry--"Kim up, the Kickers"--there was not likely to be a man
who would not go tumbling after his leaders.

Young Timothy Lean was a second lieutenant in the first company of the
third battalion, and just at this time he was pattering along at the
flank of the men, keeping a fatherly lookout for boots that hurt and
packs that sagged. He was extremely bored. The mere far-away sound of
desultory shooting was not war as he had been led to believe it.

It did not appear that behind that freckled face and under that red hair
there was a mind which dreamed of blood. He was not extremely anxious to
kill somebody, but he was very fond of soldiering--it had been the
career of his father and of his grandfather--and he understood that the
profession of arms lost much of its point unless a man shot at people
and had people shoot at him. Strolling in the sun through a practically
deserted country might be a proper occupation for a divinity student on
a vacation, but the soul of Timothy Lean was in revolt at it. Some times
at night he would go morosely to the camp of the cavalry and hear the
infant subalterns laughingly exaggerate the comedy side of the
adventures which they had had out with small patrols far ahead. Lean
would sit and listen in glum silence to these tales, and dislike the
young off