Arthur Conan Doyle

“ I could wear out a good quill-pen just writing about what we did, Jim and I, at the depot in Glasgow; and how we came to know our officers and our comrades, and how they came to know us. Soon came the news that the folk of Vienna, who had been cutting up Europe as if it had been a jigget of mutton, had flown back, each to his own country, and that every man and horse in their armies had their faces towards France. We heard of great reviews and musterings in Paris too, and then that Wellington was in the Low Countries, and that on us and on the Prussians would fall the first blow. ”

“ But slashed right across this pretty picture was a long trail of marching men -- some red, some green, some blue, some black -- zigzagging over the plain and choking the roads, one end so close that we could shout to them, as they stacked their muskets on the ridge at our left, and the other end lost among the woods as far as we could see. ”

“ For when I write I like things to come slow and orderly and in their turn, like sheep coming out of a paddock. So it was at West Inch. But now that we were drawn into a larger life, like wee bits of straw that float slowly down some lazy ditch, until they suddenly find themselves in the dash and swirl of a great river ”

“ We built him a wooden barn among us in our spare time, and many a time I and Jeb Seaton, my rear-rank man, have hung out his washing, for the smell of the wet linen seemed to take us both straight home as nothing else could do. I have often wondered whether that good man and his wife are still living, though I think it hardly likely, for they were of a hale middle-age at the time. Jim would come with us too, sometimes, and would sit with us smoking in the big Flemish kitchen, but he was a different Jim now to the old one. ”

“ Then he came over to me and punched me in the ribs and felt my muscle, and was nigh as pleased as with Jim.
"These are the sort, major, these are the sort," he kept saying. "With a thousand of these we could stand up to Boney's best."
"How do they run?" asked the major.
"A poor show," said he, "but they may lick into shape. The best men have been drafted to America, and we are full of Militiamen and recruities."
"Tut, tut!" said the major. "We'll have old soldiers and good ones against us. ”

“ They have ten to our one, and good men too. You 've got to shoot at their faces or else at their horses. Mind you that when you see them coming, or else you 'll find a four-foot sword stuck through your liver to teach you better. Hark! Hark! Hark! There 's the old music again?"
And as he spoke there came the low grumbling of a cannonade away somewhere to the east of us, deep and hoarse, like the roar of some blood-daubed beast that thrives on the lives of men. At the same instant there was a shouting of "Heh! heh! heh!" from behind, and somebody roared, "Let the guns get through!" ”

“ He was at Brussels with the bulk of the army, but we knew that we should see him quick enough if he were needed.
I had never seen so many English together, and indeed I had a kind of contempt for them, as folk always have if they live near a border. But the two regiments that were with us now were as good comrades as could be wished. The 52nd had a thousand men in the ranks, and there were many old soldiers of the Peninsula among them. They came from Oxfordshire for the most part. The 95th were a rifle regiment, and had dark green coats instead of red. ”

“ The Government was shipping men over to him as fast as they could, and every port along the east coast was choked with guns and horses and stores. On the third of June we had our marching orders also, and on, the same night we took ship from Leith, reaching Ostend the night after. It was my first sight of a foreign land, and indeed most of my comrades were the same, for we were very young in the ranks. ”