The "Ballad of Boh da Thone" came back--the humour of it. Dick--the old blackguard--a rifle butt, and a German's head after he'd hit it--one side; a boiled shirt, dress clothes, and a general air of complacent peacefulness--the other. And the girl: it is always the girl who points the contrast. . . . I laughed. "Go away, and talk to your harmless husband. I am wrapped in thought, or was, till you disturbed me." What did she know--God bless her--of the details, the filthy, necessary details of war. To her it was just a parting from one man, who went into an unknown land where there was danger--hideous, intangible danger. But of the reality. . . . It is all contained in the one axiom--Kill, and kill at once, so as to have a maximum of time to kill more. And with the bayonet, do not let it be imagined for a moment that the work is easy. Bayonet fighting requires perfect condition, a fair share of strength, and a quick eye. Mistakes, when a man comes to the real thing, are not likely to occur twice, and there are many things which a man must learn who aspires to become even as Jimmy O'Shea. How to go round a traverse when a Boche is on the other side, and it's him or you; how to take on three men in succession, when the last one throws his arms round your neck, and burbles, "Ve vos friends--nein?" Jimmy was great on that point: with the bayonet jabbed upwards into the chin, and the sapient remark, "Ve _vos_, ma tear." But enough; this is not a treatise on bayonet fighting, and I have in mind to tell of O'Shea's last fight. There is just one more scene which comes back vividly before I reach the end, and that is the final exercise he gave his men in their training. When they'd thrust and parried and stabbed; when they'd jumped trenches and thrust their bayonets into sacks on the other side; when they'd been confronted with strange balls of straw in unexpected places, and kicked them or jabbed them or bit them as the case might be--then came the gem, the _bonne bouche_. These preliminary practices were only one stroke, one thrust; the last was a fight to the death in a manner of speaking, and it was generally preceded by one of Jimmy's better stories. The best he kept for recital just before going over the top; so as to send 'em along frothing at the mouth, as he put it.