The night came, and it was terrible to hear the poor chaps moaning with pain. I was in pain myself now, but my sufferings were a mere nothing compared with those of some of the men around me. It seemed as if the day would never break, but at last it came, and by that time some of the poor fellows who had been making such pitiful noises were no more. Some time after that, however, I got away in a field ambulance. When we were at Le Cateau many spies were caught. I saw several of them. They were young chaps, dressed up as women and as boys and girls, and it was not very easy to detect them. One was disguised as a woman, with rather a good figure. I saw this interesting female when she was captured by our artillery. The gunners had their suspicions aroused, with the result that they began to knock the lady about a bit, and her wig fell off. Then her figure proved to be not what it seemed, for the upper front part of it was composed of two carrier-pigeons! I did not see the end of that batch of spies, but a battery sergeant-major afterwards told me that they had been duly shot. One of the most extraordinary things I saw was the conduct of a man who had had his right arm shot off from above the elbow. I was standing quite near him, and expected that he would fall and be helpless. Instead of doing that, he turned his head and looked at the place where the arm should have been. I suppose he must have been knocked off his balance by what had happened. At any rate, he gave a loud cry, and instantly started to run as fast as I ever saw a man go. Two or three members of the Royal Army Medical Corps at once gave chase, with the object of securing him and attending to him. The whole lot of them disappeared over some rising ground, and what happened to them I do not know. I saw many fellows who had queer tales to tell of what had happened to them. One chap, a rifleman, who was in the ship coming home, was so nervous that the slightest noise made him almost jump out [Illustration: [_To face p. 234._ “I TOOK HIM UP AND BEGAN TO CARRY HIM” (p. 227).] of his skin. And well it might, for his nerves had been shattered. A shell had buried itself in the ground just in front of him and exploded, blowing him fifteen feet into the air, and landing him in a bed of mud. He was so completely stunned that he lay there for about eight hours, scarcely moving, though he was not even scratched. He came round all right, but was a nervous wreck, and had to be invalided. CHAPTER XX THE VICTORY OF THE MARNE