“Monsieur, I am very, very old now, almost eighty, but I am a patriot and I love my France.  I do not complain that I have lost everything in this war.  I do not care now, for I am old and it is for my country; but there is much sadness for me to remember, and it is with great bitterness that I think of the pig Allemand—­beast that he is.

“Two years ago I lived in this house, happy with my daughter and her husband and the little baby, and my husband, who worked in the mines.  He was too old to fight, but when the great war came he tried to enlist, but they would not listen to him, and he returned to work, that the country should not be without coal.

“The beau-fils (son-in-law), he enlisted and said good-by and went to the service.

“By and by the Boche come and in a great battle not far from this very house the beau-fils is wounded very badly and is brought to the house by comrades to die.

“The Boche come into the village, but the beau-fils is too weak to go.  The Boche come into the house, seize my daughter, and there—­they—­oh, monsieur—­the things one may not say—­and we so helpless.

“Her father tries to protect her, but he is knocked down.  I try, but they hold my feet over the fire until the very flesh cooks.  See for yourselves the burns on my feet still.

“My husband dies from the blow he gets, for he is very old, over ninety.  Just then mon beau-fils sees a revolver that hangs by the side of the German officer, and putting all his strength together he leaps forward and grabs the revolver.  And there he shoots the officer—­and my poor little daughter—­and then he says good-by and through the head sends a bullet.

“The Germans did not touch me but once after that, and then they knocked me to the floor when they came after the pig officer.  By and by come you English, and all is well for dear France once more; but I am very desolate now.  I am alone but for the petite-fille (granddaughter), but I love the English, for they save my home and my dear country.”

I heard a good many stories of this kind off and on, but this particular one, I think, brought home, to me at least, the general beastliness of the Hun closer than ever before.  We all loved our little kiddie very much, and when we saw the evidence of the terrible cruelties the poor old woman had suffered we saw red.  Most of us cried a little.  I think that that one story made each of us that heard it a mean, vicious fighter for the rest of our service.  I know it did me.

One of the first things a British soldier learns is to keep himself clean.  He can’t do it, and he’s as filthy as a pig all the time he is in the trenches, but he tries.  He is always shaving, even under fire, and show him running water and he goes to it like a duck.

More than once I have shaved in a periscope mirror pegged into the side of a trench, with the bullets snapping overhead, and rubbed my face with wet tea leaves afterward to freshen up.