the dividing of the contents of
captured chop boxes that was being carried out under the direction of
the officer in charge. On occasions such as these, the men were rewarded
with the only really square meal they had often had for days; for the
Hun is a past master in the art of doing himself well, and his chopboxes
are always full of new bread, chocolate, sardines and many little
delicacies. I stepped forward to claim the two Red Cross boxes that had
obviously been the property of the German doctor, and with some
difficulty--for no soldier likes to be robbed of his spoil--I managed to
establish the right of the hospital to them. In the boxes were not only
a fine selection of drugs and surgical dressings and a bottle of brandy,
but also the doctor's ammunition. And such ammunition too. Huge
black-powder cartridges with large leaden bullets; they would only fit
an elephant gun; and yet this was the kind of weapon this doctor found
necessary to bring to protect himself against British soldiers. Had that
doctor been caught with his rifle he would have deserved to be shot on
the spot. Nor were our men in the best of moods; for they had seen the
dead Fusilier, and were furious at the wounds these huge lead slugs
create.

The orderlies then lifted the German officer tenderly into the
ambulance; and the prisoner, now feeling full of the courage that
morphia and brandy give, beckoned to me. "Meine Uhr in meiner Tasche,"
he said, pointing to his torn trouser. "Well, what about it?" I asked.
Again he mentioned his watch in his pocket, and looked at his torn
trouser. "Do you suggest," I said sternly, "that a British soldier has
taken your beastly watch." "No, no, not for worlds," he exclaimed; "I
merely wish to mention the fact that when I went into action I had had a
large gold watch and a large gold chain, and much gold coin in my
pocket. And now," he said, "behold! I have no watch or chain." "What," I
said again, "do you suggest that these soldiers are thieves?" "No! Not
at all; but when I was wounded the soldiers, running up in their anxiety
to help me and dress my wound" (as a matter of fact they had run up to
bayonet him, had not the officer intervened, for this swine had
forfeited his right to mercy by emptying his revolver first and then
surrendering) "inadvertently cut away my pocket in slitting up my
trouser leg." "Then your watch," I continued coldly, "is still lying on
the field, or, if a soldier should discover it, h