"Thin iverybody lies, an' 'tis Tim Doreen as says it! There ye go again wid a lot of domn fool thinkin' of w'ot ye got no cause to think. Wasn't I just after tellin' ye there ain't no worse dry-rot for a soldier? The Boche can put up as good a scrap as most, lad, whin they're bunched in a crowd, but take 'em mon for mon an' they ain't no fighters a-tall, a-tall. I ain't denyin' their officers is hep to the game--but thot's just w'ot proves me p'int: for do ye s'pose their fat-headed gineral staff'd be silly enough to march ar-rmy after ar-rmy jam up aginst our strong positions, bunched like a herd o' sheep, if they didn't know the men was too spineless to go into the fray like us, or the British, or the Frinch--which is to say, in open order an' like hell?" "I don't see how that'll get us anywhere," Jeb remarked. "'Twill get us _iverywhere_," Tim replied emphatically. "Didn't it get us as far as we've got, whin we were at our wur-rst, an' thim at their best? An' they was shure a rattlin' ar-rmy thot first year, make no mistake on thot, lad! There was fine steel in 'em, mind ye: the 2nd Bavarian Corps, now, which did me heart good to fight wid!--cruel, unprincipled outcasts, to be shure, an' wid no mercy nor respect for women--still, they was good fighters! But of late the b'ys tells me their whole ar-rmy's been so watered down wid inferior stuff thot ye'd not know it for the same; an' lest they're touchin' elbows an' absorbin' courage w'ot comes from bein' clost, they ain't w'ot ye'd call reliable, anny more. They can't stand the gaff as they wanst could! W'y, I was in at the takin' av wan av their artillery positions on the Somme, lad, an' may I be shot for a spy if we didn't find gunners chained to the wheels! Ye don't need no searchlight to find the answer av thot, do ye now? Their fightin' _machine_ is good, mind ye; but it ain't no more nor less'n a red sausage machine whin iverythin's considered! But as for the individual fightin' mon, w'y, he don't grow over there, a-tall, a-tall!" "That's all very well, Tim, but they kill a lot of our fellows, just the same!" "Shure, ivery now an' thin wan av the b'ys is sent west; but ye wouldn't have a war all wan-sided, would ye? 'Twould be no war if ye did." "It's all so horrible," Jeb shuddered. The mention of being "sent west" did not appeal to him since he had learned that it was the Tommy's way of saying that a man had been killed.