In depriving him of liberty and life, the Hun has taken off the clapper of this pure crystal bell--the gay mockery of the Frenchman. He makes him a slave and starves him, and, exulting in this outrage, he thinks that he is safe and rejoices accordingly. The Frenchman will cease to laugh at the doings of the learned bear. The Boche can continue to take himself seriously and the Frenchman cannot chuckle over him, but all of a sudden, to his consternation and profound stupefaction, there comes, he knows not whence, the reckless, bewildering, irritating sound of that accursed bell. The nimble-witted Frenchman, tricky as a monkey, has got hold of the bell. Without the clapper and with his cheery shout and reckless laughter he has made it ring by swinging it down on the hard head of the Teuton. I trust that my friend the reader may catch in a favourable spirit some faint echo of this ringing which, although “Made in Germany,” is peculiarly French. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. WOUNDED AND A PRISONER 1 II. IN BELGIUM 22 III. A FRENCH VICTORY 36 IV. SALOUTEZ! 42 V. THE FLEA MARKET 49 VI. THE PILLORY 64 VII. REVENGE ON BRITISH SOLDIERS 76 VIII. CENTRAL HEATING 84 IX. THE WHEELBARROWS 96 X. THE COMPANY COMMANDER 110 XI. THE FIRST OF MAY, 1915 123 XII. THE HINDOOS 138 XIII. MY ESCAPE 150 [Illustration: WOUNDED AND A PRISONER] CHAPTER I I was hit, I was conscious of being hit, and yet had not heard the bursting of the shell that caused my wound. I had an impression of my feet being violently swept from the ground, and then of my falling down heavily. I was overcome with a sense of paralysis. My legs were stiff and powerless. I felt them tingling. I did not lose consciousness, however, and saw all that was surrounding me; there, a few paces away, was a dead horse, shattered by the shell that had struck me. Convinced that I was cut in two by the shell and hit in the region of the stomach, I believed I was destined to die where I was in a very short while.