Part 5 (2/2)

I grinned: ”Well, I hope it won't be long before I see her, too, sir.”

The other fellows joined us, the straw and the smell of it still sticking to their clothes as they formed a little knot about the Prince and his staff.

The scene was incongruous, the smart uniforms of the immaculately kept staff officers contrasting strangely with our own unkempt foulness. We occupied the centre of the stage. Around us were grouped the men of our sister regiments, most of them lying on the floor in a dazed condition. There were few who came forward to listen. They were too tired, and to them at least, this was merely an incident--one of a thousand more important ones. Odd parts of clothes hung on the ornate images and decorations of the room. A German rifle hung by its sling from the patient neck of a life-sized Saviour, while further over, the vermin-infested s.h.i.+rt of a Britisher hung over the rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a brooding Madonna, with the Infant in her lap.

At the door a small group of guards stood stiffly to a painful attention and continued so to do whilst royalty touched them with the shadow of its wings.

The Prince questioned us further and I told him that I had been on a guard of honor to the Princess when she had been a child and when her father, the Duke of Connaught had been the General Officer Commanding at Aldershot.

He laughed back at us and was altogether very friendly. ”You'll go to a good camp and you'll be all right if you behave yourselves.”

Scarfe shoved in his oar here, grousing in good British-soldier fas.h.i.+on: ”I don't call it very good treatment when they steal the overcoats from wounded men.”

”Who did that?” He was all steel, and I saw a change come over the officers of the staff.

”The chaps that took us prisoners,” said Scarfe.

”What regiment were they?” The Prince glanced at an aide, who hastily drew out a notebook and began to take down our replies.

”The 21st Prussians, sir.”

”Do you know the men?”

”Their faces but not their names.”

”Of what rank was the officer in charge?”

We did not know, but thought him a company officer of the rank of captain perhaps. He asked for other particulars which we gave to the best of our knowledge.

”I'll attend to that,” he said. However, we heard no more of it. We refrained from complaining about the actual ill-treatment and indignities we had been subjected to, the murder of our unoffending comrades, or the lack of attention to our wounds, as we rightly judged that we should only have earned the enmity of our guards.

”May I have your cap badge?” the Prince asked, decently enough.

I lied brazenly: ”Sorry, sir; I've lost mine.”

The fact was I had shoved it down under my puttees while lying back of the trench the previous afternoon.

Scarfe said: ”You can have mine, sir.”

He took it. ”Thanks so much.” He glanced at the aide again; rather sharply this time, I thought. The latter blushed and hastily extracted a wallet, from which he handed Scarfe a two-mark piece, equal to one and ten pence, or forty-four cents. He gave us his name before leaving, and my recollection is that it was something like Eitelbert.

Evidently he was a brother of the d.u.c.h.ess of Connaught, whom we knew to have been a German princess whose brothers and other male relatives all enjoyed high commands among our foes.

CHAPTER IX

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