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“‘If you can,’ says he, ‘try and forget that I lost my head just now. If you knew what a bedeviled man I am, you’d only wonder why I don’t go permanently mad.’

“Then he stood looking at the green stone, which the sergeant-major had put upon the table; his lips twitched, his face was white.

“‘Oh, they are cunning,’ says he. ‘They know the nature and substance of fear. They play upon it with the expertness of devils. But,’ and he lifted one clenched fist, ‘they’ll never break my nerve; I’ll hold out against them, no matter what they do.’”

“That was pretty direct,” spoke Ashton-Kirk. “What followed? Did he say anything more?”

“The German sergeant-major took him away before he could indulge in any further remarks; I didn’t see him again until next morning; and then nothing at all was said about the doings of the night. A couple of times I was on the point of asking him to put me up in the reason for his goings on; but something in his manner and expression kept me back.

“In the late afternoon we all went out for a breather among the hills. But it was more like an expedition into the enemy’s country than an exercise. They put a couple of Colt automatics in my pocket, and each of them took one. Also the sergeant-major carried a Mauser rifle with kick enough to have killed at a couple of miles.