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 li