midnight
The men know it ; their officers know it ; the Horse Guards know it , and when the next war comes the enemy will know it also . There are two or three regiments of the Line that have a black mark against their names which they will then wipe out , and it will be excessively inconvenient for the troops upon whom they do their wiping . The courage of the British soldier is officially supposed to be above proof , and , as a general rule , it is so . The exceptions are decently shoveled out of sight , only to be referred to in the freshet of unguarded talk that occasionally swamps a Mess-table at midnight . Then one hears strange and horrible stories of men not following their officers , of orders being given by those who had no right to give them , and of disgrace that , but for the standing luck of the British Army , might have ended in brilliant disaster . These are unpleasant stories to listen to , and the Messes tell them under their breath , sitting by the big wood fires , and the young officer bows his head and thinks to himself , please God , his men shall never behave unhandily , The British soldier is not altogether to be blamed for occasional lapses ; but this verdict he should not know . A moderately intelligent General will waste six months in mastering the craft of the particular war that he may be waging ; a Colonel may utterly misunderstand the capacity of his regiment for three months after it has taken the field ; and even a Company Commander may err and be deceived as to the temper and temperament of his own handful : wherefore the soldier , and the soldier of to-day more particularly , should not be blamed for falling back .