Vultures

We came on a German who had been pinned down under a gun-carriage that had to be abandoned. He could not extricate himself, and he simply had to lie there with two loathsome vultures waiting to nibble at him when the last spark of life had gone. He was relieved when we found him, for you can imagine it’s not nice to see these awful creatures waiting to make a meal of you. Whenever we see them we kill them, but they are always hovering about the battlefields, and they always follow our men on the march. Some instinct seems to tell them when to expect dead men. They are terribly afraid of the aeroplanes, and when the machines are up vultures clear out of the way: Pte. T. R. Morgan, Royal Field Artillery.