dful 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 Frenc