We came on a German who had been pinned down under a gun-carriage that
had to be abandoned. He could not extricate himself, and he simply had
to lie there with two loathsome vultures waiting to nibble at him when
the last spark of life had gone. He was relieved when we found him,
for you can imagine it’s not nice to see these awful creatures waiting
to make a meal of you. Whenever we see them we kill them, but they are
always hovering about the battlefields, and they always follow our men
on the march. Some instinct seems to tell them when to expect dead
men. They are terribly afraid of the aeroplanes, and when the machines
are up vultures clear out of the way: _Pte. T. R. Morgan, Royal Field
Artillery_.