The other Lieutenant at last succeeds in silencing him.
"What is the use, mon ami!" he says. "What is the use?"
Perhaps this outburst is reported to headquarters by somebody. For that night at the Officers' Mess, the Captain of the regiment has a few words to say against shewing anger towards prisoners, and very gently and tactfully he says them.
He is a Belgian, and all Belgians are careful to a point that is almost beyond human comprehension in their criticisms of their enemies.
"Let us be careful never to demean ourselves by humiliating prisoners," says the Captain, looking round the long roughly-set table. "You see, my friends, these poor German fellows that we take are not all typical of the crimes that the Germans commit; lots of them are only peasants, or men that would prefer to stay by their own fireside!"
"What about Aerschot and the church?" cry a score of irritated young voices.
The Captain draws his kindly lips together, and attacks his black bread and tinned mackerel.
"Ah," he says, "we must remember they were all drunk!"
And as he utters these words there flash across my mind those old, old words that will never die:
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."