“Beside,” another officer said, “it will be maddening to be two months at sea without news, and to know that perhaps all Europe is in arms and tremendous events going on and we out of it altogether.”

“I should think nothing will be done just at present,” the major said.  “Every country in Europe has been disbanding its armies just as we have since peace was proclaimed, and it will be a long time before any of them are ready to take the field in anything like force.  Even Napoleon himself, great organizer as he is, will take some time to put all France under arms again.  An army is a machine that cannot be created in a day.  The soldiers have to clothed, arms to be manufactured, the cavalry to be mounted, the artillery to be organized, and a field train got together.  No, I should say that at least four months must elapse before fighting begins in earnest.  With anything like a favorable wind we should be across in America in a month.  If orders are sent out a month after we start we may be back in time for the opening ball.  Judging from the past, it is likely to be a long business unseating Napoleon again, and if we are not in for the first of it we may be in plenty of time for a fair share of the fighting, always supposing that the authorities are sufficiently awake to the merits of the regiment to recall us.”

“How is the wind this evening?” one of the officers asked.

“It was westerly when we came in,” Lieutenant Desmond said.  “Why do you ask?”

“Why, as long as it blows from the west there is not much chance of the transports getting in here.”

“That is so,” the major agreed.  “The question for us to consider is whether we ought to pray for a fair wind or a foul.  A fair wind will take us quickly across the Atlantic and will give us a chance of getting back in time.  A foul wind may possibly give them time to make up their minds at the Horse Guards, and to stop us before we start.  It is a nice question.”

“There is no hope whatever, major, that our government will make up their minds before the wind changes, not if it blew in one quarter longer than it has ever been known to do since the beginning of the world.  Especially, as not only they, but all the governments of Europe have to come to a decision.”

“Oh, if we had to wait for that it would be hopeless; but at the same time, as it must be evident to any individual of the meanest capacity that something or other for which troops will be required will have to be done, surely a month ought to be sufficient for the idea to occur to some one in authority that it would be as well not to be sending soldiers abroad until matters are finally settled.”

“I agree with you,” the adjutant said.  “Therefore I think we had best decide that our hopes and wishes shall be unanimous in favor of a continuance of westerly winds.”

Never were the weathercocks watched more anxiously than they were by the officers and men of the Twenty-eighth for the next fortnight.  The elements certainly appeared favorable to their wishes, and the wind blew steadily from the desired quarter, so that it was not until ten days after they were expected that the two transports which were to convey the Twenty-eighth to America dropped anchor in Cork harbor.