“Cruel, sir, mortal cruel, I be maning.  ’Twur dree weeks come Monday.[6] We wur in an advance near Wypers—­’bout as far as ’tis from our village to Wootton Bassett.  My platoon had to take a house.  We knowed ’twould be hot work, and Jacob Scaplehorn and I did shake hands.  ‘Jarge,’ ’e zed, ’if I be took write to my wife and tell ’er it be the Lard’s will and she be not to grieve.’  And I zed, ’So be, Jacob, and you’ll do the same for I.’  Our Officer, Capt’n S——­ T——­, d’you know ’en, sir?  No?  ’E com from Devizes way, he wur a grand man, never thinking of hisself but only of us humble chaps—­he said, ‘Now for it, lads,’ and we advances in ’stended order.  We wur several yards apart, just loike we was when a section of us recruits wur put through platoon drill, when I fust jined the Army an’ sergeant made us drill with skipping-ropes a-stretched out so as to get the spaces.  And there wur a machine-gun in that there house—­you know how they sputters.  It cut down us poor chaps loike a reaper.  Jacob Scaplehorn wur nex’ me and I ’eerd ’un say ’O Christ Jesus’ as ’e went over like a rabbit and ’e never said no more.  ’E wur a good man, wur Scaplehorn”—­he added musingly—­“and ’e did good things.  And some chaps wur down and dragging their legs as if they did’n b’long to ’em.  I sort o’ saw all that wi’out seeing it, in a manner o’ spaking; ’twere only arterwards it did come back to me.  There warn’t no time to think.  And by the toime we got to thic house there were only ’bout vifteen on us left.  We had to scrouge our way in through the buttry winder and we ‘eerd a girt caddle inside, sort o’ scuffling; ’twere the Germans makin’ for the cellar.  And our Capt’n posted some on us at top of cellar steps and led the rest on us up the stairs to a kind o’ tallet where thuck machine-gun was.  And what d’ye think we found, sir?” he said, raising himself on his elbow.

“What?”

“There was a poor girl there—­half daft she wur—­wi’ nothing on but a man’s overcoat.  And she rushed out avore us on the landing and began hammering with her hands against a bedroom door and it wur locked.  We smashed ‘en in wi’ our rifle-butts, and God’s mercy! we found a poor woman there, her mother seemingly, with her breast all bloody an’ her clothes torn.  I could’n mak’ out what ’er wur saying but Capt’n ’e told us as the Germans ’ad ravished her.  We used our field-dressings and tried to make the poor soul comfortable and Capt’n ’e sent a volunteer back for stretcher-bearers.”

“And what about the Germans?” I asked.

“Ah, I be coming to that, zur.  Capt’n says, ’Now, men, we’re going to reckon with those devils down below.’  And we went downstairs and he stood at top of cellar-steps, ‘twere mortal dark, an’ says, ’Come on up out o’ that there.’  And they never answered a word, but we could ’ear ’em breathing hard.  We did’n know how many there were and the cellar steps were main narrow, as narrow as th’ opening in that tent over there.  So