Harling intended it to make the men of his squadron forget they might be about to die – it had the opposite effect. Those who had not remade their wills in the past few days now regretted the omission; more than a couple of the nervous were reduced to mental wrecks of no fighting use whatsoever, and they needed long and real encouragement from their individual commanders to combat Harling's damage to their morale. It had come only a short while after the end of a series of attacks on their positions, which November Squadron had successfully repulsed. The nerves of the survivors were already ragged; the earlier artillery bombardment had been fierce. The lull, when it came, had been welcome. Then the captain's lengthy bullshit pep-talk. He had ended: 'I can't tell you not to think about KIA...but I tell you, men, when they do a body count out there, there are going to be one hell of a lot more Popskis than Johnstons.' That was great, mused Browning, one of the November drivers was a Mike Popski!
