Corporal Bateman rounded the corner into safety he glanced back,
to see "Pongo" sprawling on his bomb in the most approved style, to
prevent the bits from spreading. There was a long pause, during which
the men crouched close to the parapet waiting, waiting ... but nothing
happened.

At length someone poked his head round the traverse--to discover "Pongo"
sitting on the sandbag recently vacated by Corporal Bateman, trying to
balance the bomb on the point of a bayonet.

"'Ullo!" said that individual. "I thought as 'ow you'd gone 'ome for the
week-end. 'E wouldn't 'urt me, not this little bloke," and he fondled
the jam tin.

"Well," said Joe Bates when, one by one, the men had crept back to the
fire, "if that ain't a bloomin' miracle! I ain't never seen nuffin' like
it. Ain't you 'arf 'ad an escape, Pongo?"

"Pongo" rose to his feet, and edged towards the traverse. "It ain't such
an escape as what you blokes think, because, you see, the bomb ain't
nothin' more nor an ornary jam tin with a bit of fuse what I stuck in
it."

And he disappeared down the trench as rapidly as had his comrades a few
minutes before.

VI

THE SCHOOLMASTER OF PONT SAVERNE

I

"So, you see, Schoolmaster," said Oberleutnant von Scheldmann, "you
French are a race of dogs. We are the real masters here, and, by Heaven,
we have come to make you realise it. Your beloved defenders are running
for their lives from the nation they ventured to defy a month ago. They
are beaten, routed. What is it they say in your Latin books? 'Vae
Victis.' Woe to the conquered!"

Gaston Baudel, schoolmaster in the little village of Pont Saverne,
looked out of the window along the white road to Chalons-sur-Marne, four
miles away. Between the poplar trees he could catch glimpses of it, and
the river wound by its side, a broad ribbon of polished silver. From the
road there rose, here and there, clouds of dust, telling of some battery
or column on the move. The square of the little village, where he had
lived for close on forty years, was crowded with German troops; the
river was dirtied by hundreds of Germans, washing off the dust and
blood; the inns echoed to German laughter and German songs, and, even as
he looked, someone hurled a tray of glasses out of the window of the
Lion d'Or into the street. His blood boiled with hate of the invading
hosts that had so rudely aroused the sleepy, peaceful village, and he
felt his self-control slipping, slipping....