There was no weeping, no extreme emotion. There was a philosophical
detachment, a very prevalent humour, and, for the rest, signs of a quiet
waiting for "The Day." There is only one day for France, the day of the
arrival of Frenchmen on German soil. When the English arrive in Germany
there will be nothing doing, except some short and precise orders that we
must salute all civilians and pay double for what we buy; but when the
French arrive in Germany ... and Heaven send we are going to help them to
get well in!

There is a story current, turning on these events, of a young German
officer and an official correspondence. It just possibly may be true, since
even among such a rotten lot there might conceivably have been one
tolerable fellow. The Higher Command had been much intrigued as to a church
window, wanting to know (in writing) exactly why and how it had been
broken; or rather, as it was the German Higher Command, exactly why and how
it had been allowed to remain unbroken. You know how these affairs develop
in interest and excitement as the correspondence passes down and down, from
one formation to another, and what an air of urgency and bitterness they
wear when they reach the last man. In this case the young German subaltern,
who had no one else below him on whom to put the burden of explaining in
writing, took advantage of his position, and wrote upon a slip, which he
attached to the top of the others: "To Officer Commanding British Troops.
Passed to you, please, as this town is now in your area...."

Probably the tale isn't true, for if the officer was a German he must have
had German blood in him, and if he had German blood in him there couldn't
be room for anything else, certainly not for a sense of humour.

We stayed longer than we should have done; this was an occasion upon which
one could not insist on the limit of ten handshakes per person. I was