The man who took possession of me searched my pockets and annexed everything of military use except my revolver, which had fallen out of my hand a minute before, when I had been knocked down by a bullet that glanced off a rock on to my leg. He took out my purse and saw that it contained five sovereigns in gold (more than I have ever seen since) and a good deal in silver. Then he gave it back to me, and apparently told me to keep it. The pay of a Turkish private is, or was, ten piastres a _month_, nominally about one shilling and eightpence. My captor was a good Turk. Later on, when I came to know how rare good Turks were, I was filled with marvel. Of those taken with me, one was not molested; one was fired at from five yards’ distance, missed, and quietly captured; one was beaten and fired at. Thank God the man who fired at him hit the man who was beating him and broke his wrist. The fourth, my Colonel, was bayoneted. Then, for the moment their fury ceased. I was permitted to tend the Colonel. He did not seem to suffer pain at all, only to be intensely thirsty. He drank the whole of the contents of my water-bottle as well as his own. They even allowed me to carry him on my back; and on my back the Colonel died. May he rest in peace! He was a brave man, and a good friend to me. Brief though my personal experience of battle was, it has left two lasting convictions. One that wounds from which men die are rarely painful, at any rate for a considerable time after they have been inflicted. And another that men actually in action neither fear nor even expect death. As we climbed up that hill on August the 9th; as we dwindled down to fifty, to thirty, to twenty; as we retreated down that winding, trench-like ravine, and dwindled to five, I was not blind. I was not even fighting, but only being fought. There was but little chance to fire back, and only once did I get a bead on an enemy target. There was nothing extraordinarily exciting about it. Mostly it was hard work, rough and prickly, and I was tired. My brain was quite clear. I saw and realized the odds. But I never expected to be killed, though I knew for certain that nearly everyone else would be. It was not courage, for I have trembled with fear on other occasions. It is my fixed belief that this is the ordinary and instinctive attitude of the normal mind. And it is very comforting.