Jack, however, aroused the indignation of his tent-mates by saying frankly that he was glad that they were not going to share in the attack.
"It is all very well," he said, "to fight when you have some chance of hitting back, but to rush across ground swept by a couple of hundred guns is no joke; and to be potted at by thousands of fellows in shelter behind trenches.

One knows what it was last time.

The French send 12,000 men to attack a battery, we try to carry an equally strong place with 1000.

If I were ordered, of course I should go; but I tell you fairly, I don't care about being murdered, and I call it nothing short of murder to send 1000 men to attack such a position as that.

We used to say that an Englishman could lick three Frenchmen, but we never did it in any battle I ever heard of.