"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 French town was alive with market carts, which lumbered noisily over the cobble stones, while around the pavements, stalls and barrows did a roaring trade. It was market-day, and the hot summer sun shone down on the busy crowds. Soldiers and civilians, women and small children bargained and laughed and squabbled over the prices of "oofs" and other delicacies for the inner man. Except for the khaki and the ever present ambulance which threaded its way through the creaking country carts, it might have been peace time again in Northern France. Yet eight or nine miles away were the trenches. Facing the square was an open-air cafe, where a procession of large light beers was pursuing its way down various dry throats, belonging to officers both French and British: beer that was iced, and beautiful to behold. Away down a little farther on sat Jimmy O'Shea; not admitted into the sacred portals marked "Officers only," but none the less happy for that. In front of him was a small glass of cognac. . . .