A horrible story is told by a wounded British sergeant. Struck down by a bullet, he lay on his back on the battlefield of Mons, unable to move, around him many wounded men. The German soldiers advanced over their bodies, stabbing at them with their bayonets. Realising that his only chance of saving his life was to feign death, the wounded “Tommy” closed his eyes and kept perfectly still. As the Germans passed one struck him on the body a heavy blow with the butt of a rifle, with the result that one of his ribs was smashed. Clenching his teeth to prevent crying out he lay rigid, hoping against hope that the barbarous enemy would not see that he still lived. Then to his relief they passed on, but not before one of them had plunged his bayonet into his shoulder. Such stories as these make one’s blood boil, but they are by no means isolated instances. Many wounded soldiers who have returned have declared that after the battle of Mons the Germans, especially officers and non-commissioned officers, passed over the ground and thrust their swords at the wounded men. One man escaped by hiding for twenty-four hours under sheaves of corn. Yet another story is told by a wounded soldier who was also in the fighting near Mons. He said, “We had had to retire a short distance, leaving some killed and wounded behind. We saw the Germans come along. They carried away some of our men who were lying on the ground we had left. They placed them--and I am positively sure there were wounded as well as killed among them--on a hayrick. Then the rick was set on fire. It made us desperately wild, and we long to get at those Germans. If we only could have charged! As it was, we had to stay where we were, but I think we got in a good few shots of vengeance which found their billet.” A lieutenant of an infantry regiment stated that the Germans captured a party of his men outside Liége, and in order to prevent their escape crushed their feet with the butts of their rifles. They then took one man and held him against a tree while their comrades beat him about the back with rifle butts. An infantryman named Legrande, who was in the trenches beside his brother at a point where the fighting was furious, and who is now in hospital at Brussels, told the following story. His brother was mortally wounded by a German bullet, and died in his arms. He himself was shot in the thigh, and almost at the same moment some German Uhlans rode over him, leaving him unconscious. When he recovered his senses he made an endeavour to crawl back to his own lines, which in the meantime had been drawn in. He was discovered by some German infantrymen, who stripped him, taking his water-bottle and everything. Legrande had to wait in a state of utter nudity until the middle of the night, and then strip the dead bodies of his comrades in order to clothe himself. Eventually he regained the ranks of his comrades in an almost dying condition.