We heard a lot of shivery stories around that training camp. They
told us that the French chasseurs, the famous blue devils, were
more or less careless about the way they forgot to take prisoners.
They are a proud people, from the French Alps, and exceedingly
democratic. A German brigadier, caught under their barrage, came
up to a troop of chasseurs and when they demanded his surrender
asked curtly, "Where's your superior officer?" They pointed down
the hill, and he started down. At a safe distance they threw a hand
grenade into him and obliterated him, remarking, "Well, the world
is that much safer for democracy." It is told of a Canadian who
came across a squad of Germans with their hands up that he asked:
"How many are you?" Eleven, they said. He reached in his pocket;
found his hand grenade, and threw it at them, remarking, "I'm sorry
I have but the one; but divide it between you!" There is also the
story of the Indian Sikhs, who begged to go out on a night raiding
party--crawling on their bellies with their knives as their only
weapons. Finally two of them returned with new pairs of boots.
Showing them proudly to their amazed Captain, they said humbly,
"Yes, sire! But you would be pained to learn how long we had to
hunt for a fit!" There is also the story of the festive Tommy who
tried to play a practical joke on his German prisoner by slipping
a lighted bomb in the German's pocket. The Tommy then started to
run; the German thought he must keep up with his captor and Tommy
realized that the joke was on him, just as the bomb went off and
killed them both.

Such stories are innumerable. They are probably untrue. But they
indicate what men at war think is funny; they reflect a certain
impoliteness and lack of courtesy that prevails in war. As it wears
on it grows more or less unneighbourly. And yet the upheaval of