"Then, if you're an American, why didn't you stay in Liége? You would have been safe."
Horace looked the soldier firmly in the face.
"Would I have been safe?" he queried. "There was a woman on the road a little way back," he continued, and told the story of the toy gun.
The German listened, without comment.
"I've passed through villages where your army has been," the boy continued, "and I've seen—"
The soldier raised his hand.
"There's no need to tell me about it," he said, "I've seen it, too, and I don't like it any more than you do. You're a boy and you know nothing of war, but I tell you that sort of thing is bound to happen. I'll admit that it's horrible. Many of us are sickened by it. But don't believe that every German soldier is a brute. It's not true. War makes savages and you'll find them in every army.
"Then," he continued desperately, "what is a man to do? We've got to obey orders! Our officers tell us that a town is to be burned and pillage is allowed. It's not the soldiers who organize firing parties and order citizens to be lined up against a wall. Our officers do that.
"It's true that when you've been in the thick of blood all day, when your brain is dulled by the terrific noise and every nerve is jangled with the strain of fighting, when you see your friend fall dead by a bullet shot by a sniper from some house, when you've only got to put a bayonet to an inn-keeper's throat to get all the liquor you can drink, why, things look different then. All the standards by which you're accustomed to live have gone into the scrap-heap. You've gone back to the days of barbarism. It's another world altogether. You don't feel that you're the same person as the comfortable home-loving workman of a month before."