Each provided himself with a sword and a brace of pistols.
Mike was greatly pleased when Desmond communicated his promotion and appointment to him.
"You will look grand, your honour, as a general's aide-de-camp, with your handsome uniform and your horses and all that, and 'tis glad I am that we are going to Flanders, for, from all I have heard from men who have fought in Spain, little pleasure is to be had in campaigning there.

The food is vile, the roads are bad.

You are choked with dust and smothered with heat.
"As to their making you lieutenant, if you had your dues, it would be a colonel they should have made you, or at any rate a major." "There is plenty of time, Mike," Desmond laughed.

"A nice colonel I should look, too, leading a thousand men into battle.

If I obtain a majority in another fifteen years, I shall consider myself lucky." Desmond did not share Mike's gratification that they were to campaign with the army of the north, instead of with that in Spain.