There is no excuse for defeat in the military code, just as success excuses everything. — C. S. Forester

Dodd was not much moved anyway. His trade was in death, and he had seen much of it of late years. He was engaged in war, and war without death was a quite unthinkable thing.

The regiment had taught him that he must do his duty or die in the attempt; a simple enough religion for his simple mind. As long as there was breath in his body or a thought in his mind he must struggle on; as long as he went on trying there was no need to meditate on success or failure. The only reward for the doing of his duty would be the knowledge that his duty was being done. That was how honour called; and glory -- the man in the ranks did not bother with glory, nor did the men a century later who died in the poison gas at Ypres.

Bernardino voiced his disgust at the prospect; he was for turning back again, and a man less obstinate than Dodd might have yielded, or one with a lower ideal of military duty. But the British Army had not won the distinction it now possessed by turning back at the first sign of difficulty; nor would Dodd turn back now.