No Man's Land Part 22

"That model?" Bendigo bent forward and gazed at it lovingly. "That is yonder tree as I see it. The base materialist with the foot rule will inform you of the mundane details."

The Sapper alluded to scowled heavily at the unconscious Bendigo.

Somewhat uncertain as to what a base materialist might be, he felt dimly that it was a term to be resented.

"I was sent up 'ere, sir, with 'im to help 'im make a model of that there stump," he remarked morosely. "That's the fifteenth mess 'e's made this morning; and 'e's carried on 'orrible over the 'ole lot. If I might say so, sir, 'e don't seem quite right in his 'ead."

"I am inclined to agree with you," answered the General grimly. "He must be swept up and . . ."

Exactly what fate was in store for Bendigo will never be known. One of those visitations of fate which occur periodically in the trenches interrupted the General's words, and ended the situation in more ways than one.

"Look out, sir," cried a sergeant, with a sudden shout. "Rum jar coming."

It came: wobbling, turning, and twisting, the little black object descended from the skies towards them, and the crouching occupants of the trench heard it hit the ground a few yards away. Then it burst with a deafening roar: a roar which was followed by an ominous creaking.

It was the phlegmatic Sapper--the base materialist--who broke the news first.

With an expression of great relief on his face he gazed over the top of the trench. "Thank 'Eavens! you can't make a sixteenth, mate. The whole plurry tree's nah poo."

"Nah poo," murmured Bendigo Jones. "Nah poo. What is nah poo?" He stood up and peered over the top also. "I see no change. To some eyes it might seem that the tree had fallen; to mine it lives for ever--fragrant and cool." He descended and trod heavily on the General's toe. "To you, sir, as a man of understanding, I give my morning's labours. I have rechristened it. It symbolises 'Children at play in Epping Forest.'"

Magnificently he thrust the lump of disintegrating dirt into the arms of his outraged superior. "It is yours, sir; I, Bendigo Jones, have given you my masterpiece."

Then he departed.

The only man who really suffered was the base materialist. Two hours later he rolled up for his dinner, in a mood even more uncommunicative than usual.

"'Ullo, n.o.bby," remarked the cook affably, "you don't seem yer usual chatty self this morning. An' wot 'ave you got on your neck?"

"Less of it," returned the other morosely. "It's Hepping Forest. And that"--he plucked a fragment from his hair--"that is the bally twins playin' ''Unt the slipper.'"

Even the cook was stirred out of his usual air of superiority by this a.s.sertion, and contemplated the speaker with interest. "You don't say." He inspected the phenomenon more closely. "I thought as 'ow it was mud."

"It is." n.o.bby was even more morose. "It belonged to that 'orror Bendigo Jones, and 'e went and give it to the General." The speaker swallowed once or twice. "Then the General, 'e gives it back, in a manner of speaking. Only Bendy had gone by the time it come, and--I 'adn't. Lumme! wot a life."

VIII

THE SONG OF THE BAYONET

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 b.u.t.t 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 b.u.t.t, 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 pa.s.s 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."

She drifted away, and the man in mufti sat down again. "The last time I saw her she had a concert for the wounded at her house. A slightly bow-legged woman of great bulk was singing about her soldier lover, who saved her icckle bruvver. My hostess cried--she's that type. Only a little of course; but one tear somehow arrived."

The soldier laughed. "There are a few like that; thank heaven! not many. They've learned, d.i.c.k; they're learning every day."

"Up to a point. I am learning to stab people; a thing which, when you actually come down to it, is beyond her comprehension. She vaguely knows that that is a soldier's job--or one of them; but it means nothing to her. And I don't know that it means very much more to me."

"You'll find it will, my dear fellow, when the moment comes, and you've got your rag out and are seeing red. Let's go."

The two men got up; waiters hastened forward; and in a few moments their table was empty. For a brief s.p.a.ce the curtain of imagination had been lifted; the drama of grim stark death had flashed into a setting of luxury and life. . . .

And with the rise of the curtain Jimmy O'Shea had stepped on to the boards; for no man who knew him could ever hear the word bayonet without recalling him, if only for a second.

He was a mixture was Jimmy--one of those strange jumbles of character in which no country is more rich than Ireland. He would not take a commission, though times and again he was offered one by his Colonel.

"I can teach the boys more as a sergeant, sir," he would answer; "teach them better how to score the points that win."

"You bloodthirsty ruffian," laughed the Colonel. "Your old doctrine, I suppose, of close-quarter work."

"You have it, sir," answered O'Shea quietly. "Every dead German is one point up to us; every dead Englishman is a point down. I am teaching the boys how to kill, and not be killed themselves."

"But what the devil do you suppose they have been taught?" The C.O.

would lean back and light a cigarette. "To sit and pick b.u.t.tercups, and ask the Huns to shoot 'em?"

"Shooting, is it?" Jimmy's tone expressed immeasurable scorn. "The shooting will look after itself. It's the bayonet I talk to them about, and where to put it, and how to use it. As you know yourself, sir, a man will shoot to kill, where he'll hesitate to use his bayonet--if he's new."

"That's so. It's instinctive at times."

"Bedad, sir, they have no instinct when I've finished with them--save one. Kill clean and kill fast; and G.o.d help you if you slip. . . ."

It is possible that when a person has given no thought to war, and the objects of war, this distinction may seem strange. Death is a big matter to the average being, and one of some finality; and the manner of one's going may strike him as of little account. In which a.s.sumption he is perfectly right--if he is the member of the party who is going to be killed. But that is not the idea which a man going into a sc.r.a.p should hold for a moment. A man goes into a sc.r.a.p to kill--not to be killed. To die for one's country may be glorious; to kill for one's country is very much more so, and a deuced sight less uncomfortable. Wherefore, as Jimmy O'Shea would have said, if you'd asked him, "It's outing the other swine you're after, me bucko; not being outed yourself. Once you've got your manicured lunch hooks (as a phrase for hands I liked that sentence) on the blighter's throat, it's up to you to kill him before he kills you. And don't forget it's no dress rehearsal show. You won't fail twice."