CHAPTER 1: A Detached Force.
"Be jabers, Terence, we shall all die of weariness with doing nothing, if we don't move soon," said Captain O'Grady; who, with Dick Ryan, had ridden over to spend the afternoon with Terence O'Connor, whose regiment of Portuguese was encamped some six miles out of Abrantes, where the division to which the Mayo Fusiliers belonged was stationed.
"Here we are in June, and the sun getting hotter and hotter, and the whisky just come to an end, though we have been mighty sparing over it, and nothing to eat but ration beef.

Begorrah, if it wasn't for the bastely drill, I should forget that I was a soldier at all.
I should take meself for a convict, condemned to stop all me life in one place.

At first there was something to do, for one could forage for food dacent to eat; but now I don't believe there is as much as an old hen left within fifteen miles, and as for ducks and geese, I have almost forgotten the taste of them." "It is not lively work, O'Grady, but it is worse for me here.

You have got Dicky Ryan to stir you up and keep you alive, and O'Flaherty to look after your health and see that you don't exceed your allowance; while practically I have no one but Herrara to speak to, for though Bull and Macwitty are excellent fellows in their way, they are not much as companions.
"However, I think we must be nearly at the end of it.

We have got pretty well all the troops up here, except those who are to remain at Lisbon." "I see the men," O'Grady said, "but I don't see the victuals.