Chapter VII: Part II: The Land (5)

I trust the moral of my digression is obvious. . . . Having then, in a few well-chosen phrases, discussed one type of camouflage, I would pass on and lead the thirster for information still farther into the by-paths of knowledge. Just as there are many and divers types of deceit, varying from that which conceals what is, to that which exposes what is not--involved that last, but think it out--so are there many types of camouflage. And the particular one with which I am concerned, deals with a tree.

On a certain slight eminence in what was otherwise a flat and dreary outlook, there stood the stump of a tree. It was a tired stump, strongly reminiscent of the morning after. It had had a hard life, and much of its pristine glory had faded. No longer did the sprightly sparrow chirrup cheerfully to its young from leafy branches; no longer did cattle recline in its shade during the heat of the day. It was just a stump--a stump complete with splinters.

Its sole claim to notoriety lay in its position. It commanded a view of the German lines which was not to be had elsewhere; in fact, from the eminence on which it stood you could obtain the only good observation of the opposite trenches in that particular sector of the line.

It was the Brigade Major who first suggested the idea in the fertile brain of the C.R.E. of the Division, who happened to be talking to him at the moment. They were in the support line trenches, and close to where they stood, the tree--gaunt, repulsive and toothpicky--raised its stunted head to heaven.

"What a pity that tree ain't hollow!" ruminated the Staff officer thoughtfully. "Splendid view from it of the Huns. Can't do anything in that line, can you, Colonel?"

The C.R.E. thoughtfully considered the proposition. "Afraid not, old boy," he answered after a few moments' deliberation. "Bit of a job hollowing out a tree. All the same, you're quite right. It would make a great O.P."

"Why not make another down in your yard, and put it up instead?" The Brigadier joined in the discussion. "We must have better observation in this sector if we possibly can."

"Cut this one down one night and put up a dummy in its place." The C.R.E once again considered the wretched stump. "Not a bad idea, General; the only question is who is to do it. It will have to be a good model, or the Huns will spot the difference; and . . ." Suddenly his face cleared. "By Jove! I've got it--Bendigo Jones. He's the man for the job."

"And who the deuce is Bendigo Jones?" asked the General, as the Sapper rapidly jotted down something in his note-book. "He sounds like a prize fighter or the inventor of a patent medicine."

"Bendigo Jones, General, is my latest acquisition. I have it on no less an authority than his own that he is a very remarkable man. I gather that he is futurist by inclination, and dyspeptic by nature, which I take to be a more or less natural sequence of events. At present he adorns my office, and looks intense."

"He sounds rather like a disease," murmured the Brigade Major. "From what you say, I gather he considers himself an artist."

"He sculpts, or whatever a sculptor does when he gets busy." The Colonel smiled gently. "How he ever blew out here I cannot imagine, but these things will occur. I offended him mortally, I regret to say, the first day he arrived, by confessing that I had never even heard his name, much less seen his work, but I think he's forgiven me. I allowed him to arrange the timber yard to-day more aesthetically, and the Sergeant-major thinks he is soft in the head, so Bendigo is supremely happy."

"He sounds a perfect treasure," remarked the Brigadier drily. "However, as long as he models that tree and we get it up somehow, and I never see him, I shall be quite happy, old boy."

"It shall be done," answered the C.R.E., "by our little Bendy himself. A life-size, hollow camouflage stump shall replace the original, complete with peephole and seat."

Thus lightly was settled the immediate future of one of the world's great ones. In view, however, of the fact that the world is so often lamentably ignorant of greatness, it now becomes necessary for me to carry out my second introduction and enlighten the Philistines as to what they have missed by their miserable and sordid materialism.

Be it known then that for several years Bendigo Jones had been in the habit of inflicting upon a long-suffering and inoffensive public a series of lumps of material. What these lumps were supposed to represent no one has yet discovered; and I am given to understand that unless the proud perpetrator noted it himself on completion, he too was usually unable to elucidate the mystery. It was not of great account, as he ran not the slightest risk of contradiction whatever he said; and as no person ever willingly went twice to his exhibitions, he could vary the title daily without fear of discovery. Another great point about his work was its many-sidedness. A lump looked at from one side would perhaps represent "Pelican with young," while on the other "The Children's Hour, or six o'clock at Mud View Villa," would be depicted. This, needless to say, economised greatly in space and matter; and in case any special exhibit failed to arrive in time, or was thrown away by mistake, an old one turned upside down at once remedied the defect.

His nearest approach to fame occurred during the period which followed the perpetration of his celebrated "Mother with her Child." It was announced that the gifted sculptor had worked on it for five years; and a certain amount of light was thrown on his methods by an interview he managed to get published in some obscure journal.

"Rising with a hoarse cry," ran this effusion, "Mr. Bendigo Jones hurled himself at his work. With a single blow he removed a protuberance, and then sank back exhausted.

"'You see the difference,' he cried, 'you see how I have altered her expression.'

"'Whose?' I murmured dazedly.

"'Why, the face of the woman. Ah! dolt, blockhead, have you no eyes--have you no soul?'

"'But you told me that was a church at sunset,' I remonstrated feebly.

"'What has that to do with it?' he shouted. 'It is what I like to make it, fool. What is a name? Nothing--a bagatelle. I have changed my mind every day for the last five years, and now my life's work is done--done.'

"Mr. Bendigo Jones sobbed quietly, and I stole away. It was not for me to gaze on such grief. And as I went through the open window I heard his final whisper.

"'It shall be none of these things. I will pander to vile utilitarianism. It shall be--"A City Magnate at Lunch."'"

It may be remembered that when it was finally put on view in London, enormous interest was aroused by an enterprising weekly paper offering prizes to the extent of a thousand pounds to any one who could guess what it was; and though Bendigo Jones's pocket was helped considerably by his percentage of the gate money, his pride suffered considerably when the answers were made public. They ranged from, "Model of the first steam engine when out of control," to "An explosion of a ship at sea," both of which happy efforts gained a bag of nuts. The answer adjudged most nearly correct was sent in by a Fulham butcher, who banked on "Angry gentleman quarrelling with his landlord on quarter-day": which at any rate had the merit of making it human.

But I have digressed enough; I will return to my sad story. How our friend ever did arrive in France is as much of a mystery to me as it was to the Colonel; presumably a ruthless government, having decided it required men, roped him in along with the other lesser lights. The fiat went forth, and so did Bendigo--mildly protesting: to adorn in the fullness of time the office of the C.R.E. of whom I have spoken. And he was sitting there exhausted by his labours in helping the Sergeant-major rearrange the timber yard aesthetically, when a message arrived that the Colonel wished to speak to him.

"I understand, Jones, that you are a sculptor," remarked that officer genially, as our hero entered the office. "Now, can you model a tree?"

Bendigo gazed dreamily out of the window. "A tree," he murmured at length. "A little, beautiful tree. Green with the verdant loveliness of youth . . . green . . . green."

"It isn't," snapped the Colonel. "It's brown, and damned hideous, and full of splinters."

"Only to the eye of unbelief, sir." The sculptor regarded him compassionately. "To us--to those who can see things as they ought to be--more, as they spiritually are . . . it is different."

A door closed somewhat hastily, and the sounds from the next room seemed to indicate that the Adjutant's cough was again troubling him. The Colonel however remained calm.

"I have no doubt, Jones," he remarked dispassionately, "that what you have just said has some meaning. It is even remotely possible that you know what it means yourself. I don't; and I do not propose to try. I propose, on the other hand, to descend to the sordid details of what I wish you to do. You will commence without delay." He leaned back in his chair, and proceeded to fill his pipe.

"Up the line there is a tree stump standing on rising ground, which I wish you to copy. The model must be sufficiently good to deceive the Germans. It will be hollow, and of such a size as will accommodate an observer. The back will be hinged. When your model is made, the real tree stump will be removed one night and the sham one substituted. Do you follow me?"

It is more than doubtful if he even heard. A slight attack of dyspepsia shook him as the Colonel finished speaking, and he passed his hands twice through his hair. "The thought--the future vista--is beautiful," he murmured. "And think; think of the advertisement. To-morrow, sir, I will gaze upon it, and fashion it in clay. Then I will return and commence the great work."

He faded slowly through the door; and after a long pause the Colonel spoke. "I wonder," he remarked thoughtfully to the Adjutant who had returned: "I wonder why such things are. . . ."

* * * * * *

I am given to understand that the arrival of Bendigo Jones at the scene of his labours the next morning caused such a sensation amongst those privileged to witness the spectacle that the entire trench was blocked for two hours. To only a chosen band was vouchsafed the actual sight of the genius at work; the remainder had to be content with absorbing his remarks as they were passed down the expectant line. And it was doubtless unfortunate that the Divisional General should have chosen the particular moment when the divine fire of genius was at its brightest to visit the support line in company with his G.S.O.I. and a galaxy of other bright and shining luminaries of the military world.

"What is the meaning of this extraordinary crush in the trench this morning?" he remarked irritably to his Staff officer, as the procession was again held up by a knot of interested men.

"I really don't know, sir," murmured that worthy. "It's most unusual; it's . . ."

His words were drowned by howls of delighted laughter from round the traverse in front, and the next moment a perspiring soldier forced his way into the bay where the great ones were temporarily wedged. It was the special runner who was carrying the latest gem from the lips of Bendigo--at work a little farther up--to the expectant and breathless audience.

"Hay! little sandbag! Ho! little sandbag! 'Ow beautiful hart thou in textchah."

"Go on, Bill. Did the perisher say that?" An incredulous member of the group looked doubtful.

"Did 'e say it?" The carrier of news looked scornfully at the doubter. "Did 'e say it? Lumme! 'E said it twice, and then he buried 'is mug in its loverly fragrant surface, and pricked his nose on Ginger's bayonet. 'E's mad, boys; 'e's as mad as a plurry 'atter; 'e's got bats in 'is belfry."

Now, in spite of what I know of Bendigo Jones, I must admit that this reputed remark taxes even my credulity. Mad he undoubtedly was when viewed by the sordid standards of the vandals around him, but this inspiring ode to a sandbag grew somewhat, I cannot but help thinking, in the transmission. The regrettable thing was that it should have reached this stage when it was unwittingly presented to the Divisional General.

"Gangway!" he roared, as the hilarity remained unabated: "gangway!" He elbowed his way through the suddenly silent throng and confronted the special runner. "Now, my man, tell me--what is all this tommy rot about?"

"Bloke farther up the trenches, sir, wot don't seem quite right in the 'ead." Somewhat confused at the sudden appearance of the powers that be, the perspiring harbinger of bons mots relapsed into an uncomfortable and depressing silence.

"Not right in the head," barked the General. "God bless my soul! It must be the heat. Dreadful. What shall we do, Curtis?" He appealed for support to his Staff officer.

"I think, sir, the Doctor might precede us," answered the other resourcefully, "and see if the man is dangerous. If so, no doubt he will arrange for his removal before he does any harm."

The A.D.M.S., or Assistant Director of Medical Services--the official title of the principal bolus booster in a Division--emerged with a sickly smile from behind a corner, and advanced unwillingly to the head of the procession.

"Excellent idea," remarked the General affably. "You can prescribe for him when you see the symptoms, old boy. Probably a most interesting case--provided he doesn't stab you on sight."

"Sit on his head, Doc., if he comes for you," remarked the Staff officer, gracefully handing over the position of leader, "and, above all, dear old thing, don't let him bite you. Give him a Number Nine to chew, and we'll bind him when he becomes unconscious."

"It's all jolly fine for you to laugh," said the Doctor peevishly. "I'm fat and you're thin, and you can hide behind me."

They reached the bay of the trench next to Bendigo, just as a further great utterance was starting on its way. In the excitement of the moment, caused by the General's sudden appearance, much of this gem was lost.

What was heard, however, did not diminish the Doctor's alarm.

"Howls in the leafy verdure," he remarked anxiously. "Good Heavens, General, he must be up the tree stump!"

"That's all right, sir!" remarked a sergeant reassuringly. "'E's quite 'armless. It's his spirit mind, 'e says. He thinks the tree is full of leaves."

"Yes--but who is howling in it," asked the General irritably. "I don't hear a sound."

"It's his spirit mind again, sir," answered the sergeant respectfully. "There ain't no one 'owling really; 'e means howls wot 'oot."

The procession paused awhile to digest this momentous fact, and the Staff officer seized the opportunity to again comfort the Doctor.

"Get him at once, old sport, before he becomes homicidal. You never know when the phase will change. He may fish in his tin hat with a bent pin first or he may shoot you on sight, but I'd go at once if I were you. You stand more chance."

Undoubtedly the sight which confronted them on rounding the traverse justified their worst fears. The Doctor recoiled with a choking noise and endeavoured to wave the Staff officer forward.

"Not on your life, Doc.," remarked that worthy grimly--"not on your life. Go right in; and with your bulk you oughtn't to feel it much, wherever he kicks you."

Personally, I maintain the whole thing was rather hard on Bendigo. Before sending him up the line he should have been labelled; some warning as to his habits should have been noised abroad by the town crier. Then the unfortunate episode with the General would never have occurred. He would have made allowances, and withdrawn early for light refreshment.

But when a man whose face is of the type peculiar--the sort that you give the baby to play with--practises the habits of fourteen years unsuccessful dyspeptic futurism in a support line trench on a hot day, the result is likely to be full of incident. True--the wretched Bendigo knew no better; but no more did the General. And life is made of these trifling misunderstandings. . . .

The entranced spectators stiffened to attention as the procession of great ones--partially hidden behind the Doctor--advanced with due military precautions. Even the phlegmatic and weary Sapper who was assisting the genius, with base utilitarian details, such as the size of the trap door at the back of the proposed model, showed signs of animation. Not so Bendigo. With an expression on his face suggestive of great internal pain, he remained seated on the fire-step muttering softly to himself and clasping to his bosom a large lump of what appeared to be mud.

Suddenly he placed it on the step beside him and rose with an air of determination. The staff performed two or three nimble steps of the foxtrot variety to the rear, and as they did so Bendigo sprang to the assault. With a sweeping half-arm blow he struck the mud and the mud retaliated. While it lasted the action was brisk, but the issue was never in doubt. After two minutes in fighting, Bendigo withdrew exhausted, and most of the mud went with him. What was left looked tired.

"A clear case of shell shock," muttered the Staff officer nervously in the Doctor's ear. "For Heaven's sake do something!"

"Yes, but what the deuce am I to do?" Perspiring freely the gallant officer advanced slowly in the direction of Bendigo, who suddenly perceived him.

The sculptor smiled wearily and pointed a languid hand at the result of his labours. "A great work, my friend," he murmured. "One of my most wonderful studies."

"Doubtless," remarked the Doctor cautiously. "Don't you think--er--you'd better lie down?"

"The leafy foliage; the wonderful green effect; the tree--as I see it. Fresh, fragrant, superb." Bendigo burbled on, heedless of his mundane surroundings.

"What is the fool talkin' about?" howled the General, who was standing on tip toe trying to see what was happening.

"Hush, sir, I beg of you!" The Doctor looked round nervously. "A most peculiar----"

"I won't hush," roared his irascible senior. "Why should I hush? Some idiot is standing on my feet; and I'm wedged in here like a sardine. Let me speak to him." The General forced his way forward. "Now, you--my man, what the devil are you doing? And what's that damned lump of mud on the fire-step?"

"I am Bendigo Jones," returned the other dreamily. "Sculptah--artist--genius."

"I didn't ask who you were," barked the now infuriated General. "I asked you what that thing that looks like an inebriated blancmange is meant to be."

"That model?" Bendigo bent forward and gazed at it lovingly. "That is yonder tree as I see it. The base materialist with the foot rule will inform you of the mundane details."

The Sapper alluded to scowled heavily at the unconscious Bendigo. Somewhat uncertain as to what a base materialist might be, he felt dimly that it was a term to be resented.

"I was sent up 'ere, sir, with 'im to help 'im make a model of that there stump," he remarked morosely. "That's the fifteenth mess 'e's made this morning; and 'e's carried on 'orrible over the 'ole lot. If I might say so, sir, 'e don't seem quite right in his 'ead."

"I am inclined to agree with you," answered the General grimly. "He must be swept up and . . ."

Exactly what fate was in store for Bendigo will never be known. One of those visitations of fate which occur periodically in the trenches interrupted the General's words, and ended the situation in more ways than one.

"Look out, sir," cried a sergeant, with a sudden shout. "Rum jar coming."

It came: wobbling, turning, and twisting, the little black object descended from the skies towards them, and the crouching occupants of the trench heard it hit the ground a few yards away. Then it burst with a deafening roar: a roar which was followed by an ominous creaking.

It was the phlegmatic Sapper--the base materialist--who broke the news first.

With an expression of great relief on his face he gazed over the top of the trench. "Thank 'Eavens! you can't make a sixteenth, mate. The whole plurry tree's nah poo."

"Nah poo," murmured Bendigo Jones. "Nah poo. What is nah poo?" He stood up and peered over the top also. "I see no change. To some eyes it might seem that the tree had fallen; to mine it lives for ever--fragrant and cool." He descended and trod heavily on the General's toe. "To you, sir, as a man of understanding, I give my morning's labours. I have rechristened it. It symbolises 'Children at play in Epping Forest.'"

Magnificently he thrust the lump of disintegrating dirt into the arms of his outraged superior. "It is yours, sir; I, Bendigo Jones, have given you my masterpiece."

Then he departed.

* * * * * *

The only man who really suffered was the base materialist. Two hours later he rolled up for his dinner, in a mood even more uncommunicative than usual.

"'Ullo, Nobby," remarked the cook affably, "you don't seem yer usual chatty self this morning. An' wot 'ave you got on your neck?"

"Less of it," returned the other morosely. "It's Hepping Forest. And that"--he plucked a fragment from his hair--"that is the bally twins playin' ''Unt the slipper.'"

Even the cook was stirred out of his usual air of superiority by this assertion, and contemplated the speaker with interest. "You don't say." He inspected the phenomenon more closely. "I thought as 'ow it was mud."

"It is." Nobby was even more morose. "It belonged to that 'orror Bendigo Jones, and 'e went and give it to the General." The speaker swallowed once or twice. "Then the General, 'e gives it back, in a manner of speaking. Only Bendy had gone by the time it come, and--I 'adn't. Lumme! wot a life."

VIII

THE SONG OF THE BAYONET

Two men were seated at a table in a restaurant. Dinner was over, and from all around them came the murmur of complacent and well-fed London. A string band of just sufficient strength gave forth a ragtime effort; a supreme being hovered near to ensure that the '65 brandy was all it should be. Of the men themselves little need be said: my story is not of them. Only their conversation, half serious, half joking, brought back the picture of Jimmy O'Shea--Irishman, cowpuncher, general scallywag, and his doctrines of war and the way of his death. As I sat at the next table lazily watching pictures in the haze of tobacco smoke, their words conjured up the vision of that incomparable fighter who paid the great price a year ago, and now lies somewhere near Le Rutoire in the plains beyond Loos. For their talk was of a strange thing: the bayonet and the psychology of killing. . . .

"Have you ever killed a man, Joe? that is, killed him with a bayonet?" It was the man in mufti who was speaking; and his companion--a Major in khaki--laughed shortly.

"I can't say that I have. I've shot one or two Huns, but I've never put a bayonet into one."

The other grunted. "They were teaching me to use a bayonet this morning. It's rather fun. An intensely pugilistic little man stamped his foot at me, and brandished a ball on the end of a stick in front of my face. One's aim and object, as far as I could tell from the book of the words, was to stab the ball with the point of one's bayonet, and at the same time grunt in a manner calculated to cause alarm and despondency to every one within earshot. At times you hit the ball with the butt of the rifle; at others you kick it, endeavouring if possible not to stub your toe. Everything depends on what part of the German's anatomy it is supposed to represent at the moment." He paused and relit his cigar; then he smiled slightly. "I rather enjoyed it. The pugilistic warrior was quite pleased with me. He barked 'stomach' at me out of my turn, and there was the dam ball about a yard away. I stabbed it, kicked it, hit it with my butt, and fell down, all in the course of two seconds. But you know, Joe,"--again he paused slightly--"it's one thing to joke and talk about it here. I can't help thinking it's going to be a very different matter when one gets to the real goods. Fancy putting a foot of cold steel into a man's body."

A woman paused by their table on the way out.

"So you've actually joined up, you poor dear. Your wife told me you quite liked it."

"Yes, dear lady." He stood up and bowed. "After refusing me a commission for two years they've pushed me into what I believe they call the Feet. It's rather jolly. I haven't felt so well for years."

"And what do you do?" She adjusted her wrap to pass on.

"Oh! learn to stab people, and kick them in the tummy; and all sorts of little parlour tricks like that."

"You dreadful man! I don't believe you're a bit bloodthirsty really." She shook a reproving finger at him and laughed. "But I shan't mind a bit if you kill a lot of those nasty Germans."

She drifted away, and the man in mufti sat down again. "The last time I saw her she had a concert for the wounded at her house. A slightly bow-legged woman of great bulk was singing about her soldier lover, who saved her icckle bruvver. My hostess cried--she's that type. Only a little of course; but one tear somehow arrived."

The soldier laughed. "There are a few like that; thank heaven! not many. They've learned, Dick; they're learning every day."

"Up to a point. I am learning to stab people; a thing which, when you actually come down to it, is beyond her comprehension. She vaguely knows that that is a soldier's job--or one of them; but it means nothing to her. And I don't know that it means very much more to me."

"You'll find it will, my dear fellow, when the moment comes, and you've got your rag out and are seeing red. Let's go."

The two men got up; waiters hastened forward; and in a few moments their table was empty. For a brief space the curtain of imagination had been lifted; the drama of grim stark death had flashed into a setting of luxury and life. . . .

And with the rise of the curtain Jimmy O'Shea had stepped on to the boards; for no man who knew him could ever hear the word bayonet without recalling him, if only for a second.

He was a mixture was Jimmy--one of those strange jumbles of character in which no country is more rich than Ireland. He would not take a commission, though times and again he was offered one by his Colonel.

"I can teach the boys more as a sergeant, sir," he would answer; "teach them better how to score the points that win."

"You bloodthirsty ruffian," laughed the Colonel. "Your old doctrine, I suppose, of close-quarter work."

"You have it, sir," answered O'Shea quietly. "Every dead German is one point up to us; every dead Englishman is a point down. I am teaching the boys how to kill, and not be killed themselves."

"But what the devil do you suppose they have been taught?" The C.O. would lean back and light a cigarette. "To sit and pick buttercups, and ask the Huns to shoot 'em?"

"Shooting, is it?" Jimmy's tone expressed immeasurable scorn. "The shooting will look after itself. It's the bayonet I talk to them about, and where to put it, and how to use it. As you know yourself, sir, a man will shoot to kill, where he'll hesitate to use his bayonet--if he's new."

"That's so. It's instinctive at times."

"Bedad, sir, they have no instinct when I've finished with them--save one. Kill clean and kill fast; and God help you if you slip. . . ."

It is possible that when a person has given no thought to war, and the objects of war, this distinction may seem strange. Death is a big matter to the average being, and one of some finality; and the manner of one's going may strike him as of little account. In which assumption he is perfectly right--if he is the member of the party who is going to be killed. But that is not the idea which a man going into a scrap should hold for a moment. A man goes into a scrap to kill--not to be killed. To die for one's country may be glorious; to kill for one's country is very much more so, and a deuced sight less uncomfortable. Wherefore, as Jimmy O'Shea would have said, if you'd asked him, "It's outing the other swine you're after, me bucko; not being outed yourself. Once you've got your manicured lunch hooks (as a phrase for hands I liked that sentence) on the blighter's throat, it's up to you to kill him before he kills you. And don't forget it's no dress rehearsal show. You won't fail twice."

Now I do not wish to appear over-bloodthirsty, or to pretend for one moment that war is a gigantic and continuous shambles. It is not. But the essence of war is man power, and the points are scored by putting men out of action, without being put out of action yourself. The idea may not be nice--but war is not nice: one may not approve of the sea being salt, but disapproval does not alter hard truth. And having once granted that fact--and surely none can deny it--it is the different methods of scoring points which must be discussed. Some are impersonal--some are not: some are done in cold blood--some in hot. The whole thing is just a question of human nature; and in war, above every other known thing in this world, it is human nature that tells: it is human nature that is the great deciding factor. A man throws a bomb into a saphead full of Huns. He lies there covered by the darkness, crouching, waiting---- One, two, three--and the sharp roar of the explosion shatters the peace of the night. Guttural cursings and a dreadful agonised moaning follow in the silence that seems the more intense through the contrast. And with a smile of great content wreathing his face, the bomber creeps stealthily away to avoid intrusive flares. The matter was impersonal, the groaning Hun was a Hun, not an individuality. . . .

A couple of men, mud-caked and weary, with a Lewis gun between them, are peering over the top in an early light of dawn. Beside them there are others: tense, with every nerve alert, looking fixedly into the grey shadows, wondering, a little jumpy.

"Wot is it, Bill?" A man at the bottom of the trench is fixing a rifle grenade in his rifle. "Shall I put this one over?"

"Gawd knows." Bill is craning his head from side to side, standing on the fire-step. "Lumme! there they are. Let 'em 'ave it, Joe. It's a ruddy working party." Drawing a steady hand he fires, only to eject his spent cartridge at once and fire again. With a sudden phlop the rifle grenade goes drunkenly up into the mist; with a grunt of joy the Lewis gun and its warrior discharge a magazine at the dim-seen figures. And later, with intense eagerness, the ground in front will be searched with periscopes for the discovering and counting of the bag. The matter is impersonal; the dead are Huns, not individuals. . . .

But with a bayonet the matter is different. No longer is the man you fight an unknown impersonality. He stands before you, an individual whose face you can see, whose eyes you can read. He has taken unto himself the guise of a man; he has dropped the disguise of an automaton. In those eyes you may read the redness of fury or the greyness of terror; in either case it is you or him. And a soldier's job is to kill. . . .

In nine cases out of ten he has forfeited the right to surrender, for as Jimmy used to say, "There's only one method of surrendering, and that's by long-distance running. When the blackguards come out of their trenches fifty yards away and walk towards you bleating, 'Yes, sare; coming at once, sare, thick or clear, sare;' you may take 'em prisoners, boys."

Thus the doctrine in brief of Jimmy O'Shea, sergeant and cowpuncher, scallywag and sahib, devil and tender-hearted gentleman. I lifted my glass in a silent toast. The music was sobbing gently; the voices of women came stealing into my reverie; the smell of the brandy in my glass brought back a memory of other women, other brandy. . . .

The square in the old French town was alive with market carts, which lumbered noisily over the cobble stones, while around the pavements, stalls and barrows did a roaring trade. It was market-day, and the hot summer sun shone down on the busy crowds. Soldiers and civilians, women and small children bargained and laughed and squabbled over the prices of "oofs" and other delicacies for the inner man. Except for the khaki and the ever present ambulance which threaded its way through the creaking country carts, it might have been peace time again in Northern France. Yet eight or nine miles away were the trenches.

Facing the square was an open-air café, where a procession of large light beers was pursuing its way down various dry throats, belonging to officers both French and British: beer that was iced, and beautiful to behold. Away down a little farther on sat Jimmy O'Shea; not admitted into the sacred portals marked "Officers only," but none the less happy for that. In front of him was a small glass of cognac. . . .

It was just as a stout and somewhat heated Frenchman in civilian clothes got up from the little table next to mine that it happened. There was no sound of warning--it just occurred. The house by the clock was there one moment; the next moment it was not. A roar filled the air, drowning the clattering carts; bricks, tables, beds went hurtling up into space; walls collapsed and crashed on to the cobbles. A great cloud of stifling dust rose swiftly and blotted out the scene. Then silence--the silence of stupefaction settled for a while on the watching hundreds, while bricks and stones rained down on them from the sky.

It was the little Frenchman who spoke first. "Mon Dieu! une bombe. Et moi je suis le Maire." He walked unsteadily towards the cloud of dust, and with his going pandemonium broke loose. Mechanically the beer went down our throats, while in all directions carts bumped and jolted, wheels got locked, barrows overturned. Still the same blue sky; still the same serene sun; but in the place of a quiet grey house--wreckage, dust, death. And around us the first frenzy of panic.

"Do you put that down to an aeroplane?" I looked up to see Jimmy O'Shea beside me. "All right, mother." He was patting an excited woman on her back. "I'll help you." He started to pick up the contents of her barrow, which reposed principally in the gutter, having been knocked off by a bolting horse. "No need to get your wind up. You're cutting no ice in this show; you're only on as a super."

The woman somewhat naturally did not understand a word; but O'Shea had a way with women and children, wherein lay the charm of his strange mixture of character.

"Now these eggs, mother dear, these eggs. Bedad! they've gone to their last long rest. We can't even scramble them. Oofs, dear heart, oofs; napoo--finis."

"_C'est tout napoo._" She even laughed as she looked at the concentrated essence of yellow and white flowing slowly down the gutter. "_Mon Dieu! voilà une autre._" Another thunderous roar; another belching, choking cloud of dust and death, and a house on the other side of the square collapsed.

"It's no aeroplane, sir," said Jimmy, with his eyes on the sky. "It's a long-range gun, or I'm a Dutchman." He looked down to find a little girl clasping his knee and whimpering. "And phwat is it, me angel?" He caught her up in his arms and laughed. "Shure! and I've forgotten me little glass of stuff. Come along with me and find it."

He strode away, only to return with her in a second or two, laughing all over her face. Yes--he had a way with him, had Jimmy O'Shea.

But it was in the final tableau of that morning's work that I remember him best. It was a long-range gun as he said; and they put in fifteen twelve-inch shells in an hour, round about the square. Two got the hospital, and one hit a barber's shop where an officer was being shaved. I remember we saw him with half his face lathered, and later on we found his hand still gripping the arm of the chair. As for the barber--God knows----

We sorted out the remnants of some children from the débris of one house; and I left O'Shea after a while with a little kid of eight or nine in his arms. She was booked for God's nursery, and the passing was not going to be easy, for she was hit--nastily. And it was while Jimmy was nursing the poor torn atom with the tenderness of a woman that another sergeant of his battalion came on the scene to see if he could help.

"God! Jimmy," I heard him say, "this makes one sick."

"Sick!" O'Shea's voice was quiet. "Sick! I've stuck many of them, thank the powers, but never again--never again, my bucko--will it be anywhere save in the stomach. Anything else is too quick."

I looked at his face; and I understood. . . .

Yes--I understood because I had seen: otherwise, I should not. He would have been talking another language--one to which I was a stranger: even as were those around me, in that London restaurant, strangers--even as the men, when they first come to France, are strangers. That is the point which is in danger at times of being overlooked, especially by those who remain behind. The men are not changed in nature because they don a khaki coat, or even because they go into the trenches. They have gone to a new school, that is all; and if they would do well they must learn all the lessons--the many and very divergent lessons--they are taught. For in the hotch-potch of war there is a strange mixture of the material and the spiritual; and though at present I am concerned with the former, the latter is just as important. It is the material side of which the men such as Jimmy O'Shea are the teachers. Unless the pupils learn from the O'Sheas, they will have to do so from the Hun. And the process may not be pleasant. . . .

There are many branches of the main lesson: the counters in the game may be shells or bombs or rifle bullets or bayonets. But the method of scoring is the same in each case--one down or one up. And of them all the bayonet is the counter which is at once the most deadly and the most intolerant of mistakes. A good friend, a hard taskmaster is the bayonet, and O'Shea was the greatest of all its prophets. . . . The main object of his life was to imbue his men, and any one else he could persuade to listen, with its song. His practical teaching was sound, very sound; his verbal lashings were wonderful, unique. He'd talk and talk, and one's joy was to watch his audience. A sudden twitch, a snap of the jaw, and a bovine face would light up with unholy joy. The squad drawn up ready for practice, with the straw-filled sacks in front of them, would mutter ominously, and teeth would show in a snarl. Absurd, you say; not a bit; just a magnetic personality, and men of the right stuff. Dash it! I've seen even the Quartermaster, whose ways do not lie near such matters, hopping about from one leg to the other when Jimmy's peroration rose to its height.

"Have you a child, MacNab, a little wee kid?" he would begin.

"I have, sargint," MacNab would answer.

"Then can you imagine that wee kid with his little hands cut off? Is it a boy, MacNab?"

"It is, sargint."

"It is. That's good. But they preferred doing it to boys, MacNab. Listen to me, the lot of you. Don't mind the aeroplane. Number Two in the rear rank. They're like gooseberries out here." Number Two's eyes would abruptly come to earth again and focus themselves on the man in front. "I want you to think," Jimmy would go on quietly, "of the dirty, lousy crowd of German waiters you remember at home in the days before the war. Do you remember their greasy-looking clothes, and their greasy-looking faces, and the way you used to treat 'em as the scum of the world? Would you have one of them, MacNab, cut the hands off your kid; would you, me bucko?"

"I would not, sargint." MacNab's slow brain was working; his eyes were beginning to glint.

"Then come out here." Jimmy's voice rose to a shout. "Come out and move. Do you see that sack? do you see that white disc? Run at it, you blighter; run, snarl, spit. That's the German who has killed your kid. The white paper is his heart; run, man, run. Stab him, kill him; stuff your bayonet in him, and scream with rage."

The bewildered MacNab, on the conclusion of this tirade, would amble up to the sack, push his gun feebly in its direction, completely miss it--and look sheepishly into space.

"Mother of heaven! The first competitor in Nuts and May. Did you hear me tell you to hit the sack, MacNab? For God's sake, man, stick your bayonet in; hit it with your butt; kick it; tear it in pieces with your teeth; worry it; do anything--but don't stand there looking like a Scotchman on Sunday. The dam thing's laughing at you."

And so at last MacNab would begin. Bits of sacking would fly in all directions, streams of straw and sawdust would exude. He's kicked it twice, and hit it an appalling welt with the butt of his gun. The sweat pours from his face; but his eyes are gleaming, as he stops at last from sheer exhaustion.

"Splendid, MacNab; you're a credit to Glasgow, me boy. Are you beginning to feel what it's like to stick your point into something, even though it's only a sack?"

But MacNab is already more than half ashamed of his little outburst; he is unable to understand what made him see red--and somewhat uncomfortably he returns to his place in the squad. Only, if you look at Jimmy, you will see the glint of a smile in his eyes: the squad is new--the beginning has not been bad. He knows what made MacNab see red; by the time he has finished with him, the pride of Glasgow will never see anything else. . . .

And yet what do they know of seeing red, these diners of London? It is just as well, I grant, that they should know nothing; but sometimes one wonders, when they talk so glibly of the trenches, when they dismiss with a casual word the many months of hideous boredom, the few moments of blood-red passion of the overseas life, what would they think--how would they look--if they did know.

Would they look as did O'Neil's bride, when the robber chief's head arrived at the breakfast table? Lest there be any unfortunates who know not Kipling let me quote:

As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide
The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,
Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,
When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.
As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,
And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life
Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife. . . .

Perhaps--who knows? It is difficult to imagine the results of an impossibility--and knowledge in this case is an impossibility. Still at times the grim cynicism of the whole thing comes over one with a rush, and one--laughs. It is the only solution--laughter. Let us blot it out, all this strange performance in France: let us eat, drink and be merry. But some quotations are better not finished. . . .

"Come and join us at our table." A girl was speaking, an awfully dear girl, one to whom I had been among the many "also rans." Her husband--an officer in the infantry--grinned affably from another table.

"In a moment," I answered her, "I will come, and you won't like me at all when I do." Then I remembered something. "Why do you dine with that scoundrel?"

"Who?--My funny old Dick? A dreadful sight, isn't he, but quite harmless."

"Is he? You ask him about the German at Les Boeufs whom he met unexpectedly, and see what he says."

The "Ballad of Boh da Thone" came back--the humour of it. Dick--the old blackguard--a rifle butt, and a German's head after he'd hit it--one side; a boiled shirt, dress clothes, and a general air of complacent peacefulness--the other. And the girl: it is always the girl who points the contrast. . . .

I laughed. "Go away, and talk to your harmless husband. I am wrapped in thought, or was, till you disturbed me."

What did she know--God bless her--of the details, the filthy, necessary details of war. To her it was just a parting from one man, who went into an unknown land where there was danger--hideous, intangible danger.

But of the reality. . . .

It is all contained in the one axiom--Kill, and kill at once, so as to have a maximum of time to kill more. And with the bayonet, do not let it be imagined for a moment that the work is easy. Bayonet fighting requires perfect condition, a fair share of strength, and a quick eye. Mistakes, when a man comes to the real thing, are not likely to occur twice, and there are many things which a man must learn who aspires to become even as Jimmy O'Shea.

How to go round a traverse when a Boche is on the other side, and it's him or you; how to take on three men in succession, when the last one throws his arms round your neck, and burbles, "Ve vos friends--nein?" Jimmy was great on that point: with the bayonet jabbed upwards into the chin, and the sapient remark, "Ve _vos_, ma tear." But enough; this is not a treatise on bayonet fighting, and I have in mind to tell of O'Shea's last fight.

There is just one more scene which comes back vividly before I reach the end, and that is the final exercise he gave his men in their training. When they'd thrust and parried and stabbed; when they'd jumped trenches and thrust their bayonets into sacks on the other side; when they'd been confronted with strange balls of straw in unexpected places, and kicked them or jabbed them or bit them as the case might be--then came the gem, the _bonne bouche_.

These preliminary practices were only one stroke, one thrust; the last was a fight to the death in a manner of speaking, and it was generally preceded by one of Jimmy's better stories. The best he kept for recital just before going over the top; so as to send 'em along frothing at the mouth, as he put it.

"You don't remember Captain Trent, do you, boys?" he'd begin. "Just stand easy a while, and I'll tell you about him. After that you've got to fight a bit. He was a great officer, boys, a grand officer--one of the best. Did you ever hear how he was killed? Come out here, Malvaney; we'll just start the scrapping while I tell you. Do you see this straw ball on the top of the stick? As long as it's off the ground, it's a German. Hit it, stick it, bite it, kick it, and go on till I put it on the ground again. And curse, you blighter, curse. Just think it's the German who stuck his bayonet into Captain Trent--one of _your_ officers--while he was lying on the ground wounded in the head."

The ball began to dance. "Go on, Malvaney. Kill it, man, kill it; grunt, snarl; think of the swine and what they've done. Jab, jab--up in his throat. I'll get you a live one to practise on one day." At last the ball would come to rest, and Malvaney--his teeth bared, snarling--would face Jimmy, who stood there smiling grimly. And in a few seconds Malvaney would grin too, and the blood lust would die out of his eyes. . . .

"Good boy--not half bad!" O'Shea would nod approvingly. "The worst of it is the swine will never stand up to you--bayonet to bayonet. They prefer women and wounded men--like the Captain. Come here, MacNab, and get an appetite for your dinner. You can just rest a while--I'll get on a bit with that story. It was way back in the Spring, down south a bit; and we went over the top. Have you been over the top, MacNab?"

"I have that," answered the Scotchman in a reminiscent tone.

"How many did you kill?"

"Four-r--ah'm thinking; but ah'm no certain aboot one of them."

"Four! And none too dusty. Hit it, MacNab, me boy"--the ball would dance in his face--"hit it, as if 'twas the one of which you are not certain. Listen here, boys"--once again the ball was at rest on the ground--"I was behind Captain Trent when we went over--in the third wave; and when I got to the Germans I was just in time to see it." Jimmy's pauses were always dramatic.

"See wot, sargint?" An interested and comparatively new arrival to the battalion would lean forward.

"Captain Trent lying at the bottom of the trench--he'd gone over with the first wave--and a Hun pulling a bayonet out of him. Moreover, Captain Trent was wounded in the head." His voice gathered in fury. "Think of it, me bohunks; then think of a conscientious objector; and then come and kill this ruddy ball. A dirty filthy scut of a German waiter murdering a wounded Englishman. Hit it, MacNab; hit it; stab it, kick it; think you're scrambling for whisky in a prohibited area."

"Wot did you do, sargint?" The new arrival was still interested.

"What would you have done, Marmaduke? Come here, my boy; come here and breathe blood."

The new arrival--a little bashful at his sudden notoriety--stepped forward. "I'd have killed him, sargint."

"Then kill this ball; go on--kill it. Damme, boy; you're jumping about like an old woman looking for a flea in a bed. Move, boy, move; the ball's the flea, and you're the old trout. Bite it, boy, bite it; stamp on it; take out your fork and stick it with that." The ball came to rest; the new arrival mopped his brow. "Did I ever tell you how to kill a man with your dinner fork, by sticking it into his neck? I will some day; it's a good death for a Hun."

"Did you catch that there swine, sergeant?" Another voice from the squad took up the tale.

"Did I catch him? Did I catch him? If I hadn't caught him, Percival, I wouldn't be here now. I wouldn't dare look an exempted indispensable in the face--let alone you. And for a fat man he ran well."

"Didn't 'e fight?" Marmaduke had more or less recovered his breath.

"Fight!" O'Shea grinned at the recollection. "He looked up; he saw me about five yards away; he gave one squawk like the female ducked-billed platypus calling to her young, and he faded round the traverse like the family do when the landlord comes for the rent. Come here, O'Sullivan--and break up the home."

Marmaduke retired, to be replaced by a brawny Irishman.