"It's true that when you've been in the thick of blood all day, when your brain is dulled by the terrific noise and every nerve is jangled with the strain of fighting, when you see your friend fall dead by a bullet shot by a sniper from some house, when you've only got to put a bayonet to an inn-keeper's throat to get all the liquor you can drink, why, things look different then. All the standards by which you're accustomed to live have gone into the scrap-heap. You've gone back to the days of barbarism. It's another world altogether. You don't feel that you're the same person as the comfortable home-loving workman of a month before." Horace listened, his hopes for personal safety rising, for he realized that his captor--if captor he should prove--was a man as well as a soldier. "The blame is on the officers, then?" "No," the German answered, shaking his head, "the blame is on War, on the horrible, necessary thing itself, War. The officers can't control the cruelties which go hand-in-hand with war any more than we can, at least, not individually. They are taught that an invaded country must be terrorized. Should any officer weaken, he would be suspected and refused promotion. They're as much a part of the system as we are. The system is deliberately intended to wipe out the instincts of kindliness. To be humane is to be weak. Still, I believe and most of us believe that the system is right. War is war. It is a struggle for life and death, not a duel of politeness. It is an appeal to force and the only rule that it knows is force. War is war, and we're going to win if we have to march on the corpses of men, women and children all the way from here to the sea." Suddenly his tone changed. "Here comes an officer!" he said. "Quick, boy, hide! I will say nothing!" Horace slid into the bushes like a snake. The officer came clanking by on the path, and Horace held his breath, lest the soldier should change his mind, or lest, in the presence of the officer, the force of military discipline should urge him to reveal the presence of the fugitive. The soldier, however, simply stepped off the path and saluted, as the officer passed with the customary insolent swagger and negligent salute in reply. When the sound of footsteps could no longer be heard, the soldier spoke in a low voice. "Stay where you are," he said. "Remember, I've not seen you. But if, when you get to America, you hear stories of German brutality, tell them your story that they may know the German soldier isn't cruel just because he wants to be. It is that he must be. War is war." He turned on his heel. Horace was bursting to reply that the soldier's confession was a worse indictment of Germany as a whole than if the outrages were merely due to a few brutal individuals in the soldiery, but he restrained himself. A faint rustling told of Croquier's approach. "That was a plucky thing to do," he whispered. "You meant it to cloak my being here." "Of course."