"Wait till I tell you what the fellow did," said the doctor, after the officers had bowed themselves away, "It is one of the duties of the _Landwehr_, you know, to guard the railroads. Late in October, when the Germans were retreating from their lines outside Warsaw, they had to hold the railroads to the last. This man's commander was ordered to hold back the Russians from a little railroad depot. Private Grabbe was given ten men and a machine gun and posted by a little house near the station. He had to keep back an overwhelming number of Russians until an entire battalion was on the train, and then with the little detail make a run for it, Well, as the Russians came in great force, his comrades retreated and left him there alone. "As I told you, men get crazy in battle. Grabbe did not know that he was alone. He stuck by that machine gun, wounded and alone, mowing down the Russians until the whole German battalion--twelve hundred men--had withdrawn. Still he stuck to that machine gun, slaughtering them so, that by George! the Russians retreated. Grabbe's commander came up presently and asked him where the other men were. Grabbe said he didn't know and then the Commander saw that he was wounded." Outside a violin began to play, and Dr. Sanders explained that often the local talent dropped in to entertain the wounded. The music continued and we went from bed to bed hearing the different stories; then the music stopped, and in a clear, though childishly quavering voice, a girl began a recitation in the lobby outside. Before he came to Gleiwitz, Dr. Sanders didn't know two German words. Now, as he told me, he knows three. Consequently, as the girl spoke on and the faces of all the wounded suddenly became grim, the doctor wondered why. Then here and there a man began repeating the girl's words, others, too weak to speak, following her words with moving lips. Higher and higher quavered her voice; and suddenly I recognized what she was saying. Before I could tell the doctor, though, she swept into a climax, to fierce "_Jawohls_" from the lips of the wounded. "I don't know what you're saying," shouted Dr. Sanders, rushing into the lobby, "but stop it. It excites these patients." He saw that I was grinning, and asked what the joke was. "It's on me, what was that girl speaking?" "A new poem," I told him. "The name is: 'Murderous England.'" "So that's it, eh?" And he went up to the girl, whose hair was braided down her back and whose cheap, bright pattern dress came barely below her knees. "Now, little girl," he said, "when you want to come round to the hospital to entertain the prisoners, you learn how to speak 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' or something. Get Sister Anna to teach it to you!" And patting the child on the head, Dr. Sanders gave her a ten-pfennig piece, and asked her who had taught her the poem. "_Meine Mutter_," replied the child.