We bounded on until we were within a hundred yards from the summit. The enemy firing had ceased and we now saw about fifteen wounded men sheltering in a ditch and imploring our aid. We wondered whether this could be a trap for us? It was too late, though, for prudence. We had risked coming two miles into the enemy's lines and my men were there, quivering with impatience. It was no use hesitating. Four houses stood in the corners of the cross-roads here, and these were probably sheltering the wounded and those who were trying to escape. There was no window looking out on to the place where we stood; the gardens appeared to be empty; one more rush and we should be able to see what was going on beyond the summit. When once we were at the top, I had no time to deliberate. A horseman, who, I must own, appeared to have lost control of his mount, galloped towards me at full speed. I shouldered my gun and ... the Boche bit the dust. The terrified horse leaped about in the fields; my men took aim and the machine-gun seemed to start firing on its own accord. That moment of over-excitement saved us. The enemy thought we were there in strong force. A gun, covered with a white handkerchief, appeared at a skylight window. They were surrendering. I placed myself against the wall of the house, so that I might escape any treacherous firing from the window in the roof. "Throw the guns out!" I shouted. A gun fell on the ground at our feet, then another and another. My men were wild with delight. "Twenty ... fifty ... a hundred," they counted. When the hundred and sixth gun fell to the ground, there was a lull and a German sub-officer then, came out to make terms with us. In very good French, he asked that the lives of the Lieutenant, five sub-officers, and one hundred and six men, concealed in the house, might be spared. Two minutes later, a little troop of men arrayed in iron-grey and blue, were standing in line on the road. A very Prussian little Lieutenant handed me his pistol, which joined the guns piled up in the ditch. My men did not seem to be at all aware of the strangeness, which was really somewhat alarming, of our situation. If only our prisoners had had a little energy, the roles might have been reversed. I would not allow myself an instant even to think of this and I gave the order to my Boche colleague to take the command of his men. With incontestable authority, tapping his high boots with a little stick, the Lieutenant commanded in a very arrogant tone: "Attention!" I wondered again whether, in reply to one of his injunctions, given in a guttural tone in the German language, the whole band would not suddenly fall upon us and, instinctively, I tightened my hold on the butt end of my Mauser....