haunted, teeming with
ghosts, lie stagnant in the morning sun. The cobwebs drift across the
Hulluch road, and in the distance, by the first bend, a man pushing a
wheeled stretcher comes slowly walking back to the dressing station.
It's still going on: nothing much has changed; and yet--the cigar is
good; the brandy superb: the brandy Jimmy preferred. He only spent one
leave in England; as a sergeant he couldn't get more; but I dined with
him one night, dress clothes and all complete, and we drank that
brandy. One need hardly say, perhaps, that the writing on the register
of his birth would have been hard put to it to spell O'Shea. There
have been many like him this war, from "the legions of the lost ones
and the cohorts of the damned"; and they've come to us out of the waste
places, out of the lands that lie beyond the mountains. Unhonoured,
unknown, they've finished the game; and having finished, they lie at
peace. Britain called them; they came--those so-called wasters; look
to it, you overmuch righteous ones, who have had to be dragged by the
hairs of your heads--bleating of home ties and consciences. . . .

I forget which of the stories I heard him telling the men that morning
before they went over. He read one lot a thing he swore he'd got out
of a German paper--Heaven knows if it was true. I remember it ended
up: "Above all things show no mercy to the accursed English. They are
the starters of this war; so spit on them, kick them, use them as the
swine they are."

"There you are, boys," cried Jimmy cheerily, "listen to what the
pretties say about you. You'll be into 'em in a minute; and don't
forget what I've told you about the way to use your gun. Kill fast and
kill clean. Don't you put up with any back lash from a sausage-eating
waiter. Remember you're English, me boys; and remember the
Regiment--the Regiment that's never yet failed."

And so he went on; worth a hundred times his weight in gold to men
going in for the first time.

"Your point is at his throat, boy, don't forget it. You ain't playing
the goat with a dam lump of straw now; you're going to get a bit of
your own back with a real live Fritz. And if you make a mistake you
may not have a chance of making another. Go there steady; don't get
blown, or you'll find you won't be able to do what you'd like when you
bump Master Boche."

He passed me with a salute and a wink.

"Coming over?" he asked me.

"I am, Jimmy, with some wire