They stopped and leant over them to give them a drink from their flasks
when the wounded men blew their brains out.
SHELTERING BEHIND WOMEN
Let us call to mind the innumerable instances when the Boches put up
their hands, or waved a white flag, and cried, "Kamerad," pretending to
surrender: thus drawing our unsuspecting men towards them and then
suddenly moving aside, to leave the field open to a party of riflemen or
a machine-gun hidden away behind them. These are the tricks of cowards,
which were constantly employed at the beginning of the war, and our men
(at the cost of many victims) learned at last to guard against them. But
they have done even more cowardly things than this. There was the German
officer who, to protect himself from danger while taking observations,
put three children round him. At Nery, twenty-five persons, women and
children, were compelled to walk at the side of a Boche column to
protect it from being enfiladed. Near Malines, six German soldiers who
were taking with them five young girls, on meeting a Belgian patrol,
placed the girls all round them to prevent the enemy from firing. At
Jodoigne they put a Cure in front of them and made him walk with his
arms folded, and they did the same at Hougaerde to another Cure who was
killed. A similar fate befell several civilians at Mons. At Senlis, our
men were firing to cover our retreat, and the Germans took some
inhabitants out of the houses and made them walk in the middle of the
streets while they themselves kept along by the walls.
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