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THE SIXTH DRUNK
87
O’Flannigan? What’s that red on your face? It’s rum, you blackguard. You’re drunk again.” His voice was growing weaker. “Sixth time … discharged … incorrigible and worthless.” And with that he died.
They looked at O’Flannigan, and he was sagging at the knees. “Bedad! ’tis not all rum, the red on me, colonel, dear.”
He slowly collapsed and lay still.
And that is the story of the strange table adornment of the depot mess, the depot of the regiment who have never yet lost a trench.
