We had been entrenched two days when a German spy was captured. He
spoke English as well as I do, and shouted to me, “I surrender, I
surrender; take me prisoner.” He was placed in a corner of the trench,
seven feet deep, and was guarded. He soon began to chatter, and told us
his history in such a plausible manner that we believed him. He told
us he had been in private service as a butler in Surrey and Sussex,
and also a waiter in hotels at Brighton, Liverpool, and Manchester.
The devil actually cried when he pulled out of his pocket the photo of
a girl he said he intended making his wife when the war was over if
he was spared, and begged we would not take it away from him. He said
she was a Lancashire lassie--he could put on the north-country dialect
all right--and read portions of a letter she wrote him when he was
called up. The traitor gave us a lot of supposed information about the
Germans, and pretended to be as wild as a March hare when he spoke
of their officers. They were everything that was bad. I must admit I
thought the fellow was genuine, and I gave him some of my rations, but
several of the others had their doubts. He had been with us three days
when he showed himself in his true colours. It was pitch dark, and
raining like cats and dogs. He jumped out of the trench and made a dash
for the German trenches, but he did not get thirty yards away before he
was brought down. The next morning we saw his dead body lying where he
fell: _Sapper A. G. Hutton, R.E._