"I should like one week in Cologne," one of
them told me, before there seemed ever a chance of getting there, "and
I would let my men loose in the streets and turn a blind eye to
anything they liked to do."
Some of our officers were inspired by a bitter, unrelenting hate.
"If I had a thousand Germans in a row," one of them said to me, "I
would cut all their throats, and enjoy the job.
But that was not the mentality of the men in the ranks, except those
who were murderers by nature and pleasure. They gave their cigarettes
to prisoners and filled their water-bottles and chatted in a friendly
way with any German who spoke a little English, as I have seen them
time and time again on days of battle, in the fields of battle. There
were exceptions to this treatment, but even the Australians and the
Scots, who were most fierce in battle, giving no quarter sometimes,
treated their prisoners with humanity when they were bundled back.
Hatred was not the motive which made our men endure all things.
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