He was a very stout young man, with well-developed muscles,
and having lain for some time in a state of coma, he suddenly
became delirious and tried to fight me. I disposed of him in a
backyard, where he gradually recovered, and then I set out again in
search of my sheep. After scouting about Poperinghe in the
darkness, I discovered a beer tavern with a fair-sized room in which
the party might be packed with care, and then, like a pocket patriarch
with the children of Israel, I led my ladies on foot to the place of
sanctuary and disposed the nuns round the bar, with the reverend
mother in the centre of them, having a little aureole round her head
from the glamour of the pewter pots. The others crowded in anyhow
and said in a dreadful chorus, like Katherine in "The Taming of the
Shrew," "We want our supper!"
A brilliant inspiration came to me. As there were British troops in
Poperinghe, there must also be British rations, and I had glorious
visions of Maconochie and army biscuits. Out into the dark streets
again I went with my little car, and after wayside conversations with
British soldiers who knew nothing but their own job, found at last the
officer in charge of the commissariat. He was a tall fellow and rather
haughty in the style of a British officer confronted abruptly with an
unusual request.
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