I knew what might happen--I had been through the whole affair in Belgium. I knew from experience all that they told me, and a great deal more.... But I can assure you now, and I shall dare to say it on the day I have to stand before my Eternal Judge, I have never of my own impulse harmed any civilian; I have no murder or other deed of shame on my conscience. The guilt of whatever I have had a share in doing is entirely on the heads of those who could demand it of me. They could demand of me that I should do my duty and whip me into doing it, or shoot me if I refused. I had long since sworn loyalty to the colours. That oath is sacred, like any other oath. And I was a subject of the country I served and had to serve. That being so, may I not be allowed to say that while I was appalled at what I now saw, I was at the same time filled with a certain satisfaction. It appalled me because all horror appals, yet at the same time there was a certain satisfaction about it, because I saw in it a just retribution for all that we had done in Belgium--a mild and very lenient retribution, by the way. Don't you think one may be allowed to say that without being stamped as cruel and merciless? There is, amongst my Russian experiences, an incident which I shall always be glad to cherish with the warmest gratitude, because it represents to me what we mortals usually call Nemesis--that is, chastising justice, or whatever name you prefer to give it. I call it the judgment of God because it seemed as if there was a leading and guiding hand in it--a hand that struck one who was guilty and gave atonement for two whose lives had been taken. The rearguard to which I belonged--I think we were only a couple of thousand men--had been billeted for a day in a fairly large village not far from the Russian frontier. It was one of the first places to be laid waste. There were not many farms or houses left that were not in ruins. The cattle had been taken and the corn trodden down. Many homes were quite deserted, and no one knew where the inmates were. Besides, who could know at such a time, when each one had enough to do to save himself and those belonging to him. Perhaps they were dead; perhaps terror had driven them to madness; perhaps they had dragged themselves along, weary to death, in the train of the fleeing crowds and had fallen by the wayside in a ditch or at the edge of a forest, left behind by the others who continued their insensate flight and took heed of naught but themselves and their own affairs. Perhaps they lay by the roadside gazing towards the home that was now a ruin, at the fires blazing over the flat country, and up to the heavens where it seemed to them that everything was forgotten--mercy, goodness, justice.