soner was
and stopped at a brick building which was entered through a courtyard.
There were men on guard in the outer room and also in a second room
from which a door led into a large brick chamber used as the condemned
cell. Here I found the man who was to pay the penalty of his
cowardice. He had a table before him and on it a glass of brandy and
water and writing materials. He was sitting back in his chair and his
face wore a dazed expression. The guards kindly left us alone. He rose
and shook hands with me, and we began to talk about his sentence. He
was evidently steeling himself and trying to fortify his mind by the
sense of great injustice done to him. I allowed him to talk freely and
say just what he pleased. Gradually, I succeeded in getting at the
heart of the true man which I knew was hidden under the hard exterior,
and the poor fellow began to tell me about his life. From the age of
eleven, when he became an orphan, he had to get his own living and
make his way in a world that is often cold and cruel to those who have
no friends. Then by degrees he began to talk about religion and his
whole manner changed. All the time I kept feeling that every moment
the dreaded event was coming nearer and nearer and that no time was to
be lost. He had never been baptised, but wished now to try and make up
for the past and begin to prepare in a real way to meet his God.

I had brought my bag with the communion vessels in it, and so he and I
arranged the table together, taking away the glass of brandy and water
and the books and papers, and putting in their place the white (p. 211)
linen altar cloth. When everything was prepared, he knelt down
and I baptised him and gave him his first communion. The man's mind
was completely changed. The hard, steely indifference and the sense of
wrong and injustice had passed away, and he was perfectly natural. I
was so much impressed by it that while I was talking to him, I kept
wondering if I could not even then, at that late hour, do something to
avert the carrying out of the sentence. Making some excuse and saying
I would be back in a little while, I left him, and the guard went into
the room accompanied by one of the officers of the man's company. When
I got outside, I told the brigade chaplain that I was going to walk
over to Army Headquarters and ask the Army Commander to have the death
sentence commuted to imprisonment.

It was then about one a.m. and I started off in the rain d