Beaten by German Fork Hunters

Last night I was walking along a country lane with some of my new Ikea cutlery.
The track was muddy and up ahead I saw around 1000 stationary Germans in orderly lines. Perhaps military, I'm not sure. I threaded through them and got ahead of the group.
But to my dismay I found I had lost some of my new forks.
I retraced my steps to search for them.
But, the Germans had been mobilised by their commander and ordered to search the lane for, naturally, old cutlery.
The commander had already found several old forks and spoons.
I ran through the group and an amazing amount of cutlery had been found.
Having no German to explain about my lost Ikea stuff, I had little chance of finding them myself.
Despair.
What a load of tosh.