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.

"I caught him, O'Sullivan--hit, man, hit--just as he reached his
dug-out. Kick it, man; you can't use your butt from there. Jab,
jab--you blighter; for God's sake use your gun as if you loved it. He
stuck in the door, O'Sullivan, for half a second. There's the
ball--that's his back. Go on. Good, good." With an awful curse the
Irishman lunged and the ball dropped to the ground.

"Dead," O'Shea grinned. "That's what I did; through the back. But the
blamed thing stuck; I couldn't get it out. What do you do then,
Marmaduke?"

"Put a round in, sargint, and blow it out."

"Good boy, Marmaduke. You'll be a Field-Marshal before you've done.
That's what I did too; and I blew the swine down the entrance. Now
then, half with sticks and half with rifles; go on--fight----"

This, as I said, was one of Jimmy's better stories. Incidentally it
had the merit of being true. . . .

But one could continue indefinitely. Some one will write a book one
day about Jimmy O'Shea, and the manner of his life. If so, order an
advance copy; it will be the goods. Just at the moment it was the
manner of his death that had me. I was back again in derelict
Vermelles, with its spattered water tower, and the flat desolate plain
in front. Loos is out of sight over the hill; only the great slag heap
lies squat and menacing on one's left, with the remnants of Big Willie
and Little Willie near to its base in the old blood-soaked Hohenzollern
redoubt. Cambrin, Guinchy, La Bassee--silent and