A soldier in an ill-equipped revolutionary army lost his rifle, so he went to his group's leader for a replacement.
"What am I going to do?" asked the soldier. "We are going to have a big battle tomorrow and I don't have a rifle."
"Don't worry," said his leader. "The other side doesn't have very good weapons either, and they are so brainwashed that they believe anything they hear. Just pretend you are pointing a rifle at them and say, 'Bang! Bang!' It will have the same effect as if you fired a real rifle at them."
"OK," said the soldier skeptically. "But I lost my bayonet too."
"Do the same thing," said his leader. "When the hand-to-hand combat begins, just point your fingers like this and say, 'Stab! Stab! Stab!' You'll see it has the same effect as using a bayonet."
The soldier was even more skeptical of this advice, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. As the sun came up, the enemy came charging over the hill right at him. And he held out his imaginary rifle, saying loudly, "Bang! Bang! Bang!" To his amazement one of them dropped, then another and then another.
But suddenly he saw a particularly fierce, huge enemy soldier coming right at him. Despite his best imaginary efforts, the enemy soldier kept coming right at him until he was just a few feet away.
"Stab! Stab! Stab!" said the frightened soldier, waving his fingers right at his adversary.