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administered punishment.
"I think that's about enough," he said, and returned the choking and
spluttering prisoner to his place between the guards.
"He kept me," he said, "on my knees, so I think he ought ... thank ye,"
as the German went down again none too gently. "After that he went on
saying some things it would be waste o' time to repeat. Swine dog was
about the prettiest name he had any use for. But there was another thing
he did; ye'll see some muck on my face and on my jacket. It came there
like this; he took hold o' me by the hair--this way." And Macalister
proceeded to demonstrate as he explained.

"Then--my hands being tied behind my back you will remember, like
this--it was easy enough for him to pull me over on my face--like this...
and rub my face in the mud.... The bottom o' this trench is in no such a
state a' filth as theirs, but it'll just have to do." He hoisted the German
back to his knees. "Then I think it was after that the pistol and the
killing bit came in." And Macalister put his hand to his pocket and
drew out the officer's pistol which he had thrust there.
"He gave me five minutes, so I'll give him the same. Has ony o' ye a
watch?"
A timekeeper stepped forward out of the little knot of spectators that
crowded the trench, and Macalister requested him to notify them when
only one minute of the five was left.
"My manny here was good enough," said Macalister, "to tell me he
wouldna' bandage my eyes, because he wanted me to look down the
muzzle of his pistol; so now," turning to the prisoner, "you can watch
my finger pulling the trigger."
As the four minutes ebbed, the German's courage ran out with them.
The jokes and laughter about him had ceased. Macalister's face was set
and savage, and there was a cold, hard look in his eye, a stern ferocity
on his mud and bloodstained face that convinced the German the end of
the five minutes would also surely see his end.
"One minute to go," said the timekeeper. A sigh of indrawn breaths ran
round the circle, and then tense silence. Outside the trench they were in
the roar of the guns boomed unceasingly, the shells whooped and
screwed overhead, and from oat in front came the crackle and roar of
rifle-fire; and yet, despite the noise, the trench appeared still and silent.
Macalister noted that, as he had noted it over there in the German
trench.
"Time's up," said the man with the watch. The German, looking straight
at the pistol muzzle and the cold eye behind the sights, gasped and
closed his eyes. The silence held, and after a dragging minute the
German opened his eyes, to find the pistol lowered but still pointing at

him.
"To make it right and fair," said Macalister, "his hands should be loose,
because I had managed to loose mine. Will one o' ye ... thank ye. It's no
easy," continued Macalister, "to just fit the rest o' the program in,
seeing that it was here a bomb fell in the trench, an' his men bein' weel
occupied gettin' oot o' its way, I threw him ower the parapet and
dragged him across to oor lines. Maybe ye'd like to try and throw me
out the same way."
The German was perhaps a brave enough man, but the ordeal of those
last five minutes especially had brought his nerve to near its breaking
strain. His lips twitched and quivered, his jaw hung slack, and at
Macalister's invitation he tittered hysterically. There was a stir and a
movement at the back of the spectators that by now thronged the trench,
and an officer pushed his way through.
"What's this?" he said. "Oh, yes! the prisoner. Well, you fellows might
have more sense than heap yourselves up in a crowd like this. One
solitary Krupp dropping in here, and we'd have a pretty-looking mess.
Open out along the trench there, and keep low down. You can be ready
to move in a few minutes now; we are being relieved here and are
going further back. Now what about this prisoner? Who is looking after
him?"
"I am, sir," said Macalister. "The Captain said I was to take him back."
"Right," said the subaltern. "You can take him with you when you go.
They've got some more prisoners up the line, and you can join them."
It was here that the episode ended so far as Macalister was concerned,
and his relations with the German officer thereafter were of the purely
official nature of a prisoner's guard. There were some other indignities,
but in these Macalister had