G. Not for _my_ wife at any rate.
M. You know too much, Gaddy, and--I don't like you any the better for
it!
G. Never mind that. She wants England, and The _Butcha_ would be all the
better for it. I'm going to chuck. You don't understand.
M. (_Hotly._) I understand _this_. One hundred and thirty-seven new
horses to be licked into shape somehow before Luck comes round again; a
hairy-heeled draft who'll give more trouble than the horses; a camp next
cold weather for a certainty; ourselves the first on the roster; the
Russian shindy ready to come to a head at five minutes' notice, and you,
the best of us all, backing out of it all! Think a little, Gaddy. You
_won't_ do it.
G. Hang it, a man has some duties towards his family, I suppose.
M. I remember a man, though, who told me, the night after Amdheran, when
we were picketed under Jagai, and he'd left his sword--by the way, did
you ever pay Ranken for that sword?--in an Utmanzai's head--that man
told me that he'd stick by me and the Pinks as long as he lived. I don't
blame him for not sticking by me--I'm not much of a man--but I _do_
blame him for not sticking by the Pink Hussars.
G. (_Uneasily_.) We were little more than boys then. Can't you see,
Jack, how things stand? 'Tisn't as if we were serving for our bread.
We've all of us, more or less, got the filthy lucre. I'm luckier than
some, perhaps. There's no _call_ for me to serve on.
M. None in the world for you or for us, except the Regimental. If you
don't choose to answer to _that_, of course--
G. Don't be too hard on a man. You know that a lot of us only take up
the thing for a few years and then go back to Town and catch on with the
rest.