Others paced up and down, up and down, like
caged animals, as they were, famished and parched, until we could
distribute the rations. Many of them were dying, and a German
ambulanceman went among them, injecting them with morphine to ease the
agony which made them writhe and groan. Two men held their stomachs,
moaning and whimpering with a pain that gnawed their bowels, caused by
cold and damp. They cried out to me, asking for a doctor. A friend of
mine carried a water jar to some of the wounded and held it to their
lips. One of them refused. He was a tall, evil-looking fellow, with a
bloody rag round his head--a typical "Hun," I thought. But he pointed
to a comrade who lay gasping beside him and said, in German, "He needs
it first." This man had never heard of Sir Philip Sidney, who at
Zutphen, when thirsty and near death, said, "His need is greater than
mine," but he had the same chivalry in his soul.
The officer in charge of their escort could not speak German and had
no means of explaining to the prisoners that they were to take their
turn to get rations and water at a dump nearby.
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