Pryor looked under the table, then
turned round and fixed a pair of scared eyes on me, and beckoned to me
to approach. I came to his side and saw under the table on the floor a
human hand, severed from the arm at the wrist. Beside it lay a
web-equipment, torn to shreds, a broken range-finder and a Webley
revolver, long of barrel and heavy of magazine.
"A souvenir," said Pryor. "It must have been some time since that
dinner was made; the bully smells like anything."
"The shell came in there," I said pointing at the window, the side (p. 267)
of which was broken a little, "and it hit one poor beggar anyway.
Nobody seems to have come in here since then."
"We'll hide the revolver," Pryor remarked, "and we'll come here for it
to-night."
We hid the revolver behind the door in a little cupboard in the wall;
we came back for it two days later, but the weapon was gone though the
hand still lay on the floor. What was the history of that house and of
the officers who sat down to dinner? Will the tragedy ever be told?
I had an interesting experience near Souchez when our regiment was
holding part of the line in that locality. On the way in was a single
house, a red brick villa, standing by the side of the communication
trench which I used to pass daily when I went out to get water from
the carts at the rear. One afternoon I climbed over the side and
entered the house by a side door that looked over the German lines.
The building was a conspicuous target for the enemy, but strange to
say, it had never been touched by shell fire; now and again bullets
peppered the walls, chipped the bricks and smashed the window-panes.
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