ere turned and they in a position to loot the treasures
of many German farms and plantation houses. Of course, divisional orders
against looting and wanton destruction were very strict. Where houses
were at the mercy of small patrols and bodies of our men under
non-commissioned officers, far from the path of the main advancing army,
the temptation to all must have been immense, and it speaks volumes for
the natural goodness of our men and their ingrained sense of order that
never in this whole country was looting done by any of our troops. True
many houses were plundered, and there was a certain amount of wanton
damage; but it was all done by the plundering native or by the Hun
himself in his retreat.

For our calculating enemy left no stone unturned to deprive us of any of
the useful booty of war. He deliberately destroyed and ravaged and burnt
the property of his fellow-countrymen, and mentally determined to send
in the claim for damage against us. A German will always complain and
send in a bill of costs to us, when he is once assured of the protection
of British troops.

Naturally, of course, we requisitioned and gave receipts for any article
or property that might be of use to us for our hospitals or our
supplies. In fact, our scrupulous regard for enemy property will
probably result in very many fraudulent claims against our Government
when the war is over. How easy to add mythical articles of great value
to the list attested to by the signature of a British Staff officer. Who
could blame a Hun when the British were such fools and forgery of
receipts so easy?

But such was the regard we paid to German women and children that, if a
house were occupied, we took nothing and disturbed nothing. A German
farmhouse was an oasis of plenty amid a very hungry army. It made us
sometimes wonder whether it was quite right to leave German ducks and
fowls and sheep behind us, when we had to live on mealie meal and tough
trek-ox. But the women were so terrified, at first, that we gave such
farms a wide berth when scarcity of water did not force us to camp
within the enclosures. Shortly, however, as is the German custom, these
women would profit by their immunity and come to regimental headquarters
that listened so patiently and courteously to the tale of pawpaws or
mangoes--fruit that was really wild--vanished in the night. In no
campaign, I dare swear, has so much respect been given to occupied
houses, so much consideration t