Like Desdemona, she pitied him, and learnt his history.
His name was Matthaus Tina, and Saarbruck his native town, where his mother was still living.

His age was twenty-two, and he had already risen to the grade of corporal, though he had not long been in the army.
Phyllis used to assert that no such refined or well-educated young man could have been found in the ranks of the purely English regiments, some of these foreign soldiers having rather the graceful manner and presence of our native officers than of our rank and file.
She by degrees learnt from her foreign friend a circumstance about himself and his comrades which Phyllis would least have expected of the York Hussars.

So far from being as gay as its uniform, the regiment was pervaded by a dreadful melancholy, a chronic home-sickness, which depressed many of the men to such an extent that they could hardly attend to their drill.

The worst sufferers were the younger soldiers who had not been over here long.

They hated England and English life; they took no interest whatever in King George and his island kingdom, and they only wished to be out of it and never to see it any more.