Having thus graciously encompassed them, Tommy proceeded to kill them with kindness, rifles, bayonets and hand grenades. The Germans, greatly bewildered by this flattering reception, would fain have rested on the laurels already won. Tommy, however, insisted on entertaining them still further, and at last, despairing of ever satisfying such a busy host, the visitors threw down their arms and capitulated. When we opened the doors of the Ambulance Train at Etaples and, instead of the customary khaki, saw the drab coats and the red-banded skull caps, we were almost as surprised as the Germans had been the day before. They were a sorry-looking lot. Dazed and bewildered by their astonishing defeat, they looked like men still under the influence of a narcotic. As they got slowly down from the coaches, their heads or arms in bandages, they looked sick—very sick indeed; but it was not so much with an illness of the body as an illness of the mind. They stood together, silent and sullen, seeming to expect ill-treatment at our hands. [Illustration: GERMAN WOUNDED] There is so little of the time "sport" in the German composition that they cannot understand that to the British war is still a game and, when the contest is over, ill-feeling ceases. We bore no more enmity toward these hapless victims of a malevolent militarism than as if they had been helpless waifs cast upon our charity. This is not a matter for self-praise; it is the inevitable result of a wholesome and broad-minded upbringing. God knows these defeated men looked sufficiently depressed and mean without our adding to their brimming cup of sorrow! Waiving prejudice for the moment and looking at them with an impartial eye, what did we see? Stripped of their accoutrements of war, they looked quiet and inoffensive enough, but the closely shaven heads gave them the appearance of criminals. In spite of this handicap some looked to be decent, reliable chaps, not so very different from our own men. Some were dark and short of stature; some were tall, broad-shouldered and strong. Some had the fair hair and blue eyes which we always associate with the Saxon. But there were those too whose low brows, irregular features and cruel eyes indicated an unmistakable moral degeneracy which boded no one good. One, a corporal, who spoke English and acted as interpreter for his fellows, presented a countenance of such striking malignancy and low cunning that the mere contemplation of his ugly features—the long nose, receding forehead and sneaky grey eyes—impressed one with an uneasy feeling that no dastardly deed would be beneath him. Upon request, he herded his companions into the ambulances, and as they were, with a few exceptions, but slightly wounded, a strong guard was sent to the hospital with them to see that they should do no mischief nor attempt to escape upon the way.