CHAPTER 16: Captured.
"I have a job for you, Mike." "What is it, your honour ?" "I want you to take off all the marks of a field officer from my clothes.

I am going to be a captain again." Mike looked with surprise at his master.
"Well, your honour, it is ungrateful bastes they must be.

Sure I thought that the least they could do was to make you a full major, though if they had made you a colonel, it would be no more than you deserve." "I was offered the majority, Mike, but I declined it.

It would be absurd, at my age, to have such a rank, and I should be ashamed to look officers of our brigade, who have done nigh twenty years of good service and are still only captains, in the face.

I would much rather remain as I am." "Well, it may be you are right, sir, but it is disappointed I am, entirely." "You will get over it, Mike," Desmond laughed.
"That may be," Mike said doubtfully, "but I should have felt mighty proud of being a colonel's servant." "I don't suppose you will ever be that, Mike.