ney. 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