He was a captain of reserves and a person of considerable wealth.

He shoved his way to the bar and laid down upon its sloppy surface two gold coins and said something to a petty officer who was directing the distribution of the refreshments.
The noncom.

hammered for silence and, when he got it, announced that the Herr Hauptmann had donated twenty marks' worth of beer, all present being invited to cooperate in drinking it up, which they did, but first gave three cheers for the captain and three more for his American friends and afterward, while the replenished mugs radiated in crockery waves from the bar to the back walls, sang for us a song which, so far as the air was concerned, sounded amazingly like unto Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own.

Their weariness was quite fallen away from them; they were like schoolboys on a frolic.

Indeed, I think a good many of them were schoolboys.
As we came out a private who stood in the doorway spoke to us in fair English.