ergeant Phillpots had been shot through the jaw so that he went to
his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself
waveringly by his hands. The blood poured from him so that he was all
but fainting with the loss of it.

A big German stood over him.

Phillpots looked up: "Play the game! Play the game!" he muttered
weakly.

The German coolly put a round through his head.

I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these things, said to
Easton: "We'd better beat it."

He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. No use stopping here. Come
on!"

And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him dead. There was no use
in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was now every man for
himself. At a later date we met in England.

The other half of the regiment lay in support two hundred yards away
in Belle-waarde Wood and in front of the chateau and lake of that
name, where my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash for it.
What with the mud and the many shell holes, the going was bad. I was
indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but
most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as
many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I
flung myself into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught my
breath, scrambled out again and raced for the trench I had just left.
I was by this time unarmed, having flung my rifle away to further my
flight, notwithstanding which another German shot at me as I went
toward him.

As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted something I could not
understand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German
sullenly lower his rifle from the level of my body at the command of a
big black-bearded officer.

CHAPTER VI

PRISONERS

A German Version of a Soldier's Death!--The Courage of
Cox--Robbing the Helpless--Water on the End of a Bayonet--The
Curious Case of Scott--Prussian Bullies--Why I Was Covered with a
Fine Sweat.

The Germans were by this time in full possession of this slice of
trench, and for the next few minutes the officer was kept busy pulling
his men off their victims. Like slavering dogs they were.

He did not have his lambs any too well in hand, however. O.B. Taylor,
a lovable character in Number One Company, came to his end here. The
Germans ordered him and Hookie Walker to go back down the trench. He
had no sooner turned to do so than a German shot him from behin