nd his hands were
handcuffed behind the post. He asked the A.P.M. if the helmet could be
taken off, but this was mercifully refused him. A round piece of white
paper was pinned over his heart by the doctor as a guide for the men's
aim. I went over and pronounced the Benediction. He added, "And may
God have mercy upon my soul." The doctor and I then went into the road
on the other side of the hedge and blocked up our ears, but of course
we heard the shots fired. It was sickening. We went back to the
prisoner who was leaning forward and the doctor felt his pulse and
pronounced him dead. The spirit had left the dreary hillside and, I
trust, had entered the ranks of his heroic comrades in Paradise.

The effect of the scene was something quite unutterable. The firing
party marched off and drew up in the courtyard of the prison. I told
them how deeply all ranks felt the occasion, and that nothing but the
dire necessity of guarding the lives of the men in the front line from
the panic and rout that might result, through the failure of one
individual, compelled the taking of such measures of punishment. A
young lad in the firing party utterly broke down, but, as one rifle on
such occasions is always loaded with a blank cartridge, no man can be
absolutely sure that he has had a part in the shooting. The body was
then placed in a coffin and taken in the ambulance to the military
cemetery, where I held the service. The usual cross was erected with
no mention upon it of the manner of the death. That was now forgotten.
The man had mastered himself and had died bravely.

I have seen many ghastly sights in the war, and hideous forms of
death. I have heard heart-rending tales of what men have suffered, but
nothing ever brought home to me so deeply, and with such cutting
force, the hideous nature of war and the iron hand of discipline, as
did that lonely death on the misty hillside in the early morning. (p. 215)
Even now, as I write this brief account of it, a dark nightmare
seems to rise out of the past and almost makes me shrink from facing
once again memories that were so painful. It is well, however, that
people should know what our men had to endure. Before them were the
German shells, the machine-guns and the floods of gas. Behind them, if
their courage failed, was the court-martial, always administered with
great compassion and strict justice, but still bound by inexorable
laws of war to put into execution, when duty compelled,