the clicking of bolts like a chorus of grasshoppers. We pursued a
section of the Royal Fusiliers in command of a corporal until he halted
his men for bayonet exercise. He drew them up in two ranks facing each
other, and began very deliberately with an allocution on the art of the
bayonet.

"There ain't much drill about the bayonet," he said encouragingly. "What
you've got to do is to get the other fellow, and I don't care how you
get 'im as long as you knock 'im out of time. On guard!"

The men in each rank brought the butts of their rifles on to their right
hips and pointed with their left feet forward at the breasts of the men
opposite. "Rest!" The rifles were brought to earth between twelve pairs
of feet. "Point! Withdraw! On guard!" They pointed, withdrew, and were
on guard again with the precision of piston-rods.

"Now watch me, for your life may depend upon it," and the corporal
proceeded to give them the low parry which is useful when you are taking
trenches and find a _chevaux-de-frise_ of the enemy's bayonets
confronting you. Each rank knocked an imaginary bayonet aside and
pointed at invisible feet. The high parry followed. So far the men had
been merely nodding at each other across a space of some twelve yards,
and it was hot work and tedious. The sweat ran down their faces, which
glistened in the sun. "Now I'm going to give you the butt exercises";
they brightened visibly.

"I am pointing--so!--and 'ave been parried. I bring the butt round on
'is shoulder, using my weight on it. I bring my left leg behind 'is left
leg. I throw 'im over. Then I give the beggar what for. So!" The words
were hardly out of his mouth before he had thrown himself upon the