A rough baptism of war, this, for a young soldier! No wonder that when the excitement is over, for the moment he thinks he "has had enough of such sights." But the poetry of battle has entered into him, witness this glorious sketch of a deed done by the 80th Queen's (Staffordshire). "I lay between them and my present regiment (1st E. B. Fusiliers) on the night of the 21st of December, at Ferozeshah, when Lord Hardinge called out '80th! that gun must be silenced.' They jumped up, formed into line, and advanced through the black darkness silently and firmly; gradually we lost the sound of their tread, and anxiously listened for the slightest intimation of their progress;--all was still for five minutes, while they gradually gained the front of the battery whose fire had caused us so much loss. Suddenly we heard a dropping fire,--a blaze of the Sikh cannon followed, then a thrilling cheer from the 80th, accompanied by a rattling and murderous volley as they sprang upon the battery and spiked the monster gun. In a few more minutes they moved back quietly, and lay down as before on the cold sand; but they had left forty-five of their number and two captains to mark the scene of their exploit by their graves." And so in another month, when the war is over and the army on its return, he "catches himself wishing and asking for more." "Is it not marvellous, as if one had not had a surfeit of killing? But the truth is _that_ is not the motive, but a sort of undefined ambition.... I remember bursting into tears in sheer rage in the midst of the fight at Sobraon at seeing our soldiers lying killed and wounded." His first campaign is over, and he goes into cantonments. The chief impression left on his mind is extreme disappointment with the state of the Sepoy regiments, which he expresses to Mr. Thomason:--