"I have, sargint," MacNab would answer.
"Then can you imagine that wee kid with his little hands cut off? Is it a boy, MacNab?"
"It is, sargint."
"It is. That's good. But they preferred doing it to boys, MacNab. Listen to me, the lot of you. Don't mind the aeroplane. Number Two in the rear rank. They're like gooseberries out here." Number Two's eyes would abruptly come to earth again and focus themselves on the man in front. "I want you to think," Jimmy would go on quietly, "of the dirty, lousy crowd of German waiters you remember at home in the days before the war. Do you remember their greasy-looking clothes, and their greasy-looking faces, and the way you used to treat 'em as the scum of the world? Would you have one of them, MacNab, cut the hands off your kid; would you, me bucko?"
"I would not, sargint." MacNab's slow brain was working; his eyes were beginning to glint.
"Then come out here." Jimmy's voice rose to a shout. "Come out and move. Do you see that sack? do you see that white disc? Run at it, you blighter; run, snarl, spit. That's the German who has killed your kid. The white paper is his heart; run, man, run. Stab him, kill him; stuff your bayonet in him, and scream with rage."
The bewildered MacNab, on the conclusion of this tirade, would amble up to the sack, push his gun feebly in its direction, completely miss it—and look sheepishly into space.
"Mother of heaven! The first competitor in Nuts and May. Did you hear me tell you to hit the sack, MacNab? For God's sake, man, stick your bayonet in; hit it with your butt; kick it; tear it in pieces with your teeth; worry it; do anything—but don't stand there looking like a Scotchman on Sunday. The dam thing's laughing at you."
And so at last MacNab would begin. Bits of sacking would fly in all directions, streams of straw and sawdust would exude. He's kicked it twice, and hit it an appalling welt with the butt of his gun. The sweat pours from his face; but his eyes are gleaming, as he stops at last from sheer exhaustion.
"Splendid, MacNab; you're a credit to Glasgow, me boy. Are you beginning to feel what it's like to stick your point into something, even though it's only a sack?"