not shoot the padre. Something in the face and figure of that
chaplain, his disregard of the bullets snapping about him, the upright,
fearless way in which he crossed that way of death, held back the
trigger-finger of the German officer and he let him pass. He passed many
times, untouched by bullets or machine-gun fire, and he went into bad
places, pits of horror, carrying hot tea, which he made from the well
water for men in agony.

XVII

During these battles I saw thousands of German prisoners, and studied
their types and physiognomy, and, by permission of Intelligence
officers, spoke with many of them in their barbed-wire cages or on the
field of battle when they came along under escort. Some of them looked
degraded, bestial men. One could imagine them guilty of the foulest
atrocities. But in the mass they seemed to me decent, simple men,
remarkably like our own lads from the Saxon counties of England, though
not quite so bright and brisk, as was only natural in their position
as prisoners, with all the misery of war in their souls. Afterward they
worked with patient industry in the prison-camps and established their
own discipline, and gave very little trouble if well handled. In each
crowd of them there were fellows who spoke perfect English, having lived
in England as waiters and hairdressers, or clerks or mechanics. It was
with them I spoke most because it was easiest, but I know enough German
to talk with the others, and I found among them all the same loathing
of war, the same bewilderment as to its causes, the same sense of being
driven by evil powers above them. The officers were different. They lost
a good deal of their arrogance, but to the last had excuses ready for
all that Germany had done, and almost to the last professed to believe
that Germany would win. Their sense of caste was in their nature. They
refused to travel in the same carriages with their men, to stay even for
an hour in the same inclosures with them. They regarded them, for the
most part, as inferior beings. And there were castes even among the
officers. I remember that in the last phase, when we captured a number
of cavalry officers, these elegant sky-blue fellows held aloof from the
infantry officers and would not mix with them. One of them paced up and
down all night alone, and all next day, stiff in the corsets below that
sky-blue uniform, not speaking to a soul, though within a few yards of
him were many officers of infantr