He made an appeal to me.

'Do the English torture their prisoners?' he asked. 'You have beaten
me. I own it, and I plead for mercy. I will go on my knees if you like.
I am not afraid of death--in my own way.'

'Few people are afraid of death--in their own way.'

'Why do you degrade me? I am a gentleman.'

'Not as we define the thing,' I said.

His jaw dropped. 'What are you going to do with me?' he quavered.

'You have been a soldier,' I said. 'You are going to see a little
fighting--from the ranks. There will be no brutality, you will be armed
if you want to defend yourself, you will have the same chance of
survival as the men around you. You may have heard that your countrymen
are doing well. It is even possible that they may win the battle. What
was your forecast to me? Amiens in two days, Abbeville in three. Well,
you are a little behind scheduled time, but still you are prospering.
You told me that you were the chief architect of all this, and you are
going to be given the chance of seeing it, perhaps of sharing in
it--from the other side. Does it not appeal to your sense of justice?'

He groaned and turned away. I had no more pity for him than I would
have had for a black mamba that had killed my friend and was now caught
to a cleft tree. Nor, oddly enough, had Wake. If we had shot Ivery
outright at St Anton, I am certain that Wake would have called us
murderers. Now he was in complete agreement. His passionate hatred of
war made him rejoice that a chief contriver of war should be made to
share in its terrors.

'He tried to talk me over this morning,' he told me. 'Claimed he was on
my side and said the kind of thing I used to say last year. It made me
rather ashamed of some of my past performances to hear that scoundrel
imitating them ... By the way, Hannay, what are you going to do with
me?'

'You're coming on my staff. You're a stout fellow and I can't do
without you.'

'Remember I won't fight.'

'You won't be asked to. We're trying to stem the tide which wants to
roll to the sea. You know how the Boche behaves in occupied country,
and Mary's in Amiens.'

At that news he shut his lips.

'Still--' he began.

'Still,' I said. 'I don't ask you to forfeit one of your blessed
principles. You needn't fire a shot. But I want a man to carry orders
for me, for we haven't a line any more, only a lot of blobs like
quicksilver. I want a clever man for the job and a brave one, and I
know that you're not af