But with a bayonet the matter is different. No longer is the man you fight an unknown impersonality. He stands before you, an individual whose face you can see, whose eyes you can read. He has taken unto himself the guise of a man; he has dropped the disguise of an automaton. In those eyes you may read the redness of fury or the greyness of terror; in either case it is you or him. And a soldier's job is to kill. . . .
In nine cases out of ten he has forfeited the right to surrender, for as Jimmy used to say, "There's only one method of surrendering, and that's by long-distance running. When the blackguards come out of their trenches fifty yards away and walk towards you bleating, 'Yes, sare; coming at once, sare, thick or clear, sare;' you may take 'em prisoners, boys."
Thus the doctrine in brief of Jimmy O'Shea, sergeant and cowpuncher, scallywag and sahib, devil and tender-hearted gentleman. I lifted my glass in a silent toast. The music was sobbing gently; the voices of women came stealing into my reverie; the smell of the brandy in my glass brought back a memory of other women, other brandy. . . .
The square in the old French town was alive with market carts, which lumbered noisily over the cobble stones, while around the pavements, stalls and barrows did a roaring trade. It was market-day, and the hot summer sun shone down on the busy crowds. Soldiers and civilians, women and small children bargained and laughed and squabbled over the prices of "oofs" and other delicacies for the inner man. Except for the khaki and the ever present ambulance which threaded its way through the creaking country carts, it might have been peace time again in Northern France. Yet eight or nine miles away were the trenches.
Facing the square was an open-air café, where a procession of large light beers was pursuing its way down various dry throats, belonging to officers both French and British: beer that was iced, and beautiful to behold. Away down a little farther on sat Jimmy O'Shea; not admitted into the sacred portals marked "Officers only," but none the less happy for that. In front of him was a small glass of cognac. . . .
It was just as a stout and somewhat heated Frenchman in civilian clothes got up from the little table next to mine that it happened. There was no sound of warning--it just occurred. The house by the clock was there one moment; the next moment it was not. A roar filled the air, drowning the clattering carts; bricks, tables, beds went hurtling up into space; walls collapsed and crashed on to the cobbles. A great cloud of stifling dust rose swiftly and blotted out the scene. Then silence--the silence of stupefaction settled for a while on the watching hundreds, while bricks and stones rained down on them from the sky.