Two men were seated at a table in a restaurant. Dinner was over, and from all around them came the murmur of complacent and well-fed London. A string band of just sufficient strength gave forth a ragtime effort; a supreme being hovered near to ensure that the '65 brandy was all it should be. Of the men themselves little need be said: my story is not of them. Only their conversation, half serious, half joking, brought back the picture of Jimmy O'Shea—Irishman, cowpuncher, general scallywag, and his doctrines of war and the way of his death. As I sat at the next table lazily watching pictures in the haze of tobacco smoke, their words conjured up the vision of that incomparable fighter who paid the great price a year ago, and now lies somewhere near Le Rutoire in the plains beyond Loos. For their talk was of a strange thing: the bayonet and the psychology of killing. . . .
"Have you ever killed a man, Joe? that is, killed him with a bayonet?" It was the man in mufti who was speaking; and his companion—a Major in khaki—laughed shortly.
"I can't say that I have. I've shot one or two Huns, but I've never put a bayonet into one."
The other grunted. "They were teaching me to use a bayonet this morning. It's rather fun. An intensely pugilistic little man stamped his foot at me, and brandished a ball on the end of a stick in front of my face. One's aim and object, as far as I could tell from the book of the words, was to stab the ball with the point of one's bayonet, and at the same time grunt in a manner calculated to cause alarm and despondency to every one within earshot. At times you hit the ball with the butt of the rifle; at others you kick it, endeavouring if possible not to stub your toe. Everything depends on what part of the German's anatomy it is supposed to represent at the moment." He paused and relit his cigar; then he smiled slightly. "I rather enjoyed it. The pugilistic warrior was quite pleased with me. He barked 'stomach' at me out of my turn, and there was the dam ball about a yard away. I stabbed it, kicked it, hit it with my butt, and fell down, all in the course of two seconds. But you know, Joe,"—again he paused slightly—"it's one thing to joke and talk about it here. I can't help thinking it's going to be a very different matter when one gets to the real goods. Fancy putting a foot of cold steel into a man's body."
A woman paused by their table on the way out.
"So you've actually joined up, you poor dear. Your wife told me you quite liked it."
"Yes, dear lady." He stood up and bowed. "After refusing me a commission for two years they've pushed me into what I believe they call the Feet. It's rather jolly. I haven't felt so well for years."
"And what do you do?" She adjusted her wrap to pass on.
"Oh! learn to stab people, and kick them in the tummy; and all sorts of little parlour tricks like that."
"You dreadful man! I don't believe you're a bit bloodthirsty really." She shook a reproving finger at him and laughed. "But I shan't mind a bit if you kill a lot of those nasty Germans."