And bye-and-bye the insinuation began to take effect. The little man had spent two years on the line and it was easy to see that bit by bit he was beginning to visualize the stick with a cloth knob as a Boche adversary. His thrusts grew fiercer and fiercer. The point of his bayonet flashed into the cloth knob again and again. He was trembling with rage as he played the battle game. As he finally flung himself upon the stick and knocked it out of the major's hands the officer called a halt. "There," he said to the Americans, "if your men are to train well, you've got to make them believe it's true, and you can do it." The British added lots of snap to the American training because they knew how to arouse the competitive spirit. They made even the most routine sort of a drill a game, and whether the men were bayoneting dummies or shooting at tin cans the little Britishers kept them at top speed by stirring up rivalry between the various organizations. Sometimes the slang was a bit puzzling. The marines, for instance, didn't know just what their bayonet instructor meant when he said: "Come on, you dreadnoughts, give 'em the old 'kamerad.'" Curiously enough the other specialty in addition to bayonet work which the British taught the doughboys was organized recreation. Thus a British sergeant would take his squad from practicing the grimmest feature of all war training and set the men to tossing beanbags or playing leapfrog. Prisoner's base, red rover and a score of games played in the streets of every American city were used to bring relaxation to the soldiers. There were other rough and tumble games in which the players buffeted each other assiduously in a neutral part of the body with knotted towels. The emphasis was put upon the ludicrous in all these games. "This may seem childish and silly to you," said the major, "but we have found on the line that the quickest way to bring back the spirit of a regiment which has been battered in battle is to take the men as soon as they come from the trenches and set them to playing these foolish little games which they knew when they were lads. When we get them to laughing again we know we've made them forget the fight." Mostly it wasn't play. There were long mornings and afternoons spent in battalion problems in which the doughboys again and again captured the position made up of the trenches Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. One general pointed out that communication between Roosevelt and Taft would be necessarily difficult and between Roosevelt and Wilson all but impossible. The doughboys overcame these difficulties as they advanced under theoretical barrages and hurled live bombs into the trenches or thereabouts.