They had so often told us the Boches finished off the wounded, that not for an instant did I entertain the hope of escape. The end was approaching; after all, it only hastened by a few moments the death which I judged inevitable. Mentally I saw with horrible clearness all the possible movements of him who was to finish me. In anticipation I felt the cold point of his bayonet piercing me, his iron heel crushing in my skull, the butt of his gun beating my face. Finally, deluding myself with the hope that I might be permitted to choose the form of my death, I was deciding that it should be with a bullet in my head, when two soldiers in uniform of greyish-green stood before me. One, a man of prompt decision, about thirty years of age, fair, with a crisp moustache and a face tanned like a labourer of the field, noticed my stripes. “Corporal, corporal,” cried he, and seizing his rifle by the barrel, began to describe a circular swing destined to send the detested non-commissioned officer into the other world. It was a blow from the butt-end of a rifle that was to finish me! I shut my eyes and ... waited with clenched teeth. The blow did not come, but I felt strong hands fall on my shoulders, forcing me to rise. “Hoch hoch, get up!” said a voice. The soldiers soon saw I could not stand, so they let me fall back into my old position. The one who evidently had prevented his comrade from killing me, bent down and gave me water to drink from his flask. Then looking for my weapons, which they could not find, they passed on their way silently and disappeared. It is to this man, to this adversary, whose features I did not see, that I owe my life. The enemy was trampling the soil of my native land, and I had fallen, powerless, wounded,--how severely I did not know,--liable to any act of German brutality, as I had just realised. In any case I was in the hands of the invaders. Patrols were now searching the conquered ground. By an effort, I suppressed the groans which pain was forcing from me. To lie hidden seemed to me the best policy. Having successfully lived through the past few hours encouraged me to think of the possibility of not dying. Ah! if only the French would come back, as they would come back most certainly. Hope lingered in my heart. A German patrol visited me. The soldiers searched my valise and a corporal placed within reach of my hand some bread and chocolate found there. Then he went off delighted, a loaf of bread under his arm, and carrying a pot of jam, which a comrade and I had vowed to eat in German territory in the evening of our first fight. Before he went, the Teuton threw over me some things he found in my valise, which protected me against the damp already beginning to fall. Abruptly the night had displaced the day, almost it seemed without transition....