he next soldier, he returned to Henry. "I say," he said, "wot are
these Sinn Feiners? I mean to say 'oo are they? Are they Irish, too?"

Henry tried to explain who the Sinn Feiners were.

"But wot they want to do? Wot's the point of all this ... this
'umbuggin' about? We don't want to fight Irish people ... we want to
fight Germans!..." He looked about for a moment, and then added, as if
to clinch his statement, "I mean to say, I _know_ an Irish chap ... 'e's
a friend of mine ... but I don't know no bloody Germans, an' wot's more
I wouldn't know them neither ... dirty lot, I calls 'em!"

"You know," he went on, "this is about the 'ottest bit of work a chap
could 'ave to do. These snipers, you know, they get on your nerves. I
mean to say, 'ere you are, standin' 'ere, you might say, in the dark an'
suddenly a bullet damn near 'its you ... or mebbe it does 'it you ...
one of our chaps was killed in front of that 'ouse last night ... they
been swillin' the blood away, see!..." Henry looked across the road to
where a man was vigorously brooming the wet pavement. The soldier
proceeded: "Well, you don't know where it's comin' from. 'E's up on one
of these 'ere roofs, 'idin', an' you're down 'ere ... exposed. 'E kneels
be'ind the parapet, an' 'as a shot at you, an' then 'e 'ops along the
roof to another place, an' 'as another shot at you.... You don't 'alf
begin to feel a bit jiggery when that's 'appening'...."

10

There was no malice in that soldier. He was puzzled, as puzzled as he
would have been if his brother had suddenly seized a rifle and lain in
wait for him. He looked upon the Irish as his comrades, not his enemies.
"I mean to say, we're all the same, I mean to say!..." He had been in
camp at Watford. "We was in a picture-palace, me an' my pal ... a whole
lot of us was there ... and then a message was put on the screen: 'All
the Dashes report at once!' I never thought nothink of it you know. Of
course, I went all right. But I thought it was just one of these
bloomin' spoof entrainments. They done that to us before ... two or
three times ... just to see 'ow quick they could do it ... an' I was
gettin' 'a bit fed-up with it. I'd said 'Good-bye' to a girl three times
... an' it was gettin' a bit monotonous. 'At it again,' I says to my
pal, as we hooked back to the camp, but when we was in the train, an' it
didn't stop an' go back again, I says to 'im, ''Illoa,' I says, 'we're
off!' An' I 'adn't said 'Good-bye' to '