'Bring me a tin whistle and I'll blow ye any tune ye like,' he cried, mindful of the Dargai piper.

Another with his arm hanging by a tendon puffed morosely at his short black pipe.

Every now and then, in face of the impossible, the fiery Celtic valour flamed furiously upwards.

'Fix bayonets, men, and let us make a name for ourselves,' cried a colour sergeant, and he never spoke again.

For five hours, under the tropical sun, the grimy parched men held on to the ground they had occupied.