We descended the further slope by a narrow gulley. Here the shell-holes were less frequent. A miry path led through an abandoned camp--a chaos of riddled and shattered boards and contorted iron sheeting. Dead Frenchmen were lying everywhere. From a drab heap of mud and clothing a human arm projected. The terminal finger-joints had dropped off. The blackened skin was drawn tightly over the back of the hand which seemed to clutch frantically at some invisible object. A little further on two soldiers were scraping the soil with sticks. "Gorblimy--'e ain't 'alf rotten--puh--don't 'e stink! I 'ope 'e's got summat in 'is pockets arter we've bin takin' all this trouble." "Yer never find much on these 'ere Froggies, the rotten bastards. They don't 'ardly get no dibs [money, pay]. Canadians and Aussies--them's the blokes yer want ter look for. Fritz ain't so bad neither. I got a bloody fine watch orf a Fritz last year down on the Somme--sold it to an orficer for thirty bleed'n' francs!" "Put yer stick under 'im an' 'eave 'im out!" One of the men pushed his stick obliquely into the ground and levered up the putrefying corpse. The other turned the pockets inside out. A few soiled and mouldy bits of paper came to light, but nothing of any value. "Just our bastard bleed'n' luck! Let's see if we can't find a Fritz or a Tommy!" Robbing the dead was always a recognized thing at the front, but our Corporal, who was rather an unsoldierly individual, did not seem to think it quite the proper thing, and shouted: "What d'you want to rob the dead for? Why don't you leave them alone?" "What's it got ter do wi' you?" answered one of the treasure-seekers. "Why don't yer mind yer own bleed'n' business? What's the use o' lettin' good stuff go west? A dead un can't do nothin' wi' watches an' rings an' five-franc notes! Gorblimy, 'ave a bit o' sense! It's allus your class o' blokes what makes a bleed'n' fuss!" Having thus vindicated their rights, the two men turned away in order to continue their search for the legitimate spoils of war. We walked on and the gulley widened out into a level crater-field. The hill loomed dimly behind us, and, looking ahead through the rain and mist, we could see the reddish blur of a ruined village. Near a small shell-hole were the remains of a German who had been blown to bits. The clothes, limbs and trunk were in one confused heap. The head lay some distance off; it was quite undamaged. The skin was black and drawn tightly over the skull. The hair was matted, but the short, blonde moustache had been neatly trimmed. The lips were shrivelled, exposing two perfect rows of white teeth, giving the dead face a horrible expression of ferocity. The eyelids were closed and taut, the cracks near the nose revealed the dark, empty eye-cavities underneath.