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If people would tell
their stories of battles in this simple way, I think the cause of
truth would not suffer by it. All I know of this famous fight of
Minden (except from books) is told here above. The ensign's silver
bon-bon box and his purse of gold; the livid face of the poor fellow
as he fell; the huzzas of the men of my company as I went out under
a smart fire and rifled him; their shouts and curses as we came hand
in hand with the Frenchmen,--these are, in truth, not very dignified
recollections, and had best be passed over briefly. When my kind
friend Fagan was shot, a brother captain, and his very good friend,
turned to Lieutenant Rawson and said, 'Fagan's down; Rawson, there's
your company.' It was all the epitaph my brave patron got. 'I should
have left you a hundred guineas, Redmond,' were his last words to
me, 'but for a cursed run of ill luck last night at faro.' And he
gave me a faint squeeze of the hand; then, as the word was given to
advance, I left him. When we came back to our old ground, which we
presently did, he was lying there still; but he was dead. Some of
our people had already torn off his epaulets, and, no doubt, had
rifled his purse. Such knaves and ruffians do men in war become! It
is well for gentlemen to talk of the age of chivalry; but remember
the starving brutes whom they lead--men nursed in poverty, entirely
ignorant, made to take a pride in deeds of blood--men who can have
no amusement but in drunkenness, debauch, and plunder. It is with
these shocking instruments that your great warriors and kings have
been doing their murderous work in the world; and while, for
instance, we are at the present moment admiring the 'Great
Frederick,' as we call him, and his philosophy, and his liberality,
and his military genius, I, who have served him, and been, as it
were, behind the scenes of which that great spectacle is composed,
can only look at it with horror. What a number of items of human
crime, misery, slavery, go to form that sum-total of glory! I can
recollect a certain day about three weeks after the battle of
Minden, and a farmhouse in which some of us entered; and how the old
woman and her daughters served us, trembling, to wine; and how we
got drunk over the wine, and the house was in a flame, presently;
and woe betide the wretched fellow afterwards who came home to look
for his house and his children!
CHAPTER V
BARRY FAR FROM MILITARY GLORY
After the death of my protector, Captain Fagan, I am forced to
confess that I fell into the very worst of courses and company.
Being a rough soldier of fortune himself, he had never been a
favourite with the officers of his regiment; who had a contempt for
Irishmen, as Englishmen sometimes will have, and used to mock his
brogue, and his blunt uncouth manners. I had been insolent to one or
two of them, and had only been screened from punishment by his
intercession; especially his successor, Mr. Rawson, had no liking
for me, and put another man into the sergeant's place vacant in his
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