There were long lines of them,
standing bolt upright, and weaponless. The Subaltern looked at them
curiously. They struck him as on the whole taller than the English, and
their faces were not brown, but grey. He admired their coats, there was
a martial air in the long sweep of them. And he confessed that one
looked far more of a soldier in a helmet. There is a ferocity about the
things, a grimness well suited to a soldier.... Not that clothes make
the man.

He sternly refused himself the pleasure of going to get a closer sight
of them. He wanted very badly to see them, perhaps to talk French with
them, but a feeling that it was perhaps _infra dignitatem_ debarred him.
The men, however, had no such scruples. They crowded round their
captives, and slowly and silently surveyed them. They looked at them
with the same sort of interest that one displays towards an animal in
the Zoo, and the Germans paid just as much attention to their regard as
Zoo animals do. Considering that only a short hour ago they had been
trying to take each other's lives, there seemed to be an appalling lack
of emotion in either party. Fully half an hour the Tommies inspected
them thus. Then, with infinite deliberation, one man produced a packet
of "Caporal" cigarettes and offered one, with an impassive countenance,
to a German. As far as the Subaltern could see, not a single word was
exchanged nor a gesture made. They did not move away until it was time
to fall in.

The advance was continued until it was dark, and intermittent firing was
heard throughout the afternoon on either flank. The German retreat,
which had in its first stages been conducted with such masterly skill,
was rapidly developing into a hurried and ill-conducted movement, that
bade fair to lead to disaster. Reports of large quantities of prisoners
were coming in more frequently than ever.

It was at this time that the Subaltern first heard the now notorious
story of the German who had been at the Savoy, and who gave himself up
to the Officer whom he recognised as an old habitue. One of the Officers
in the Regiment said that this had happened to him, and was
believed--for the moment. Later on, Officers out of every corps solemnly
related similar experiences, with occasional variations in the name of
the hotel. Usually it was the Savoy or the Ritz; less often the Carlton,
or even the Cecil, but the "Pic" or the "Troc" were absolutely barred.
The story multiplied so exceedingly that