it, and the man looked sheepishly at her, not
denying. He was sent off under escort to the military prison in St. Omer
for court-martial.

"What's the punishment--if guilty?" I asked.

"Death," said the colonel, resuming his egg.

He was a fine-looking fellow, the prisoner. He had answered the call for
king and country without delay. In the estaminet, after coming down from
the salient for a machine-gun course, he had drunk more beer than was
good for him, and the face of a pretty girl had bewitched him, stirring
up desire. He wanted to kiss her lips... There were no women in the
Ypres salient. Nothing pretty or soft. It was hell up there, and this
girl was a pretty witch, bringing back thoughts of the other side--for
life, womanhood, love, caresses which were good for the souls and bodies
of men. It was a starved life up there in the salient... Why shouldn't
she give him her lips? Wasn't he fighting for France? Wasn't he a
tall and proper lad? Curse the girl for being so sulky to an English
soldier!... And now, if those other women, those old hags, were to swear
against him things he had never said, things he had never done, unless
drink had made him forget--by God! supposing drink had made him forget?
He would be shot against a white wall. Shot dead, disgracefully,
shamefully, by his own comrades! O Christ! and the little mother in a
Sussex cottage!...

XII

Going up to Kemmel one day I had to wait in battalion headquarters
for the officer I had gone to see. He was attending a court martial.
Presently he came into the wooden hut, with a flushed face.

"Sorry I had to keep you," he said. "Tomorrow there will be one swine
less in the world."

"A death sentence?"

He nodded.

"A damned coward. Said he didn't mind rifle-fire, but couldn't stand
shells. Admitted he left his post. He doesn't mind rifle-fire!... Well,
tomorrow morning."

The officer laughed grimly, and then listened for a second.

There were some heavy crumps falling over Kemmel Hill, rather close, it
seemed, to our wooden hut.

"Damn those German gunners" said the officer. "Why can't they give us a
little peace?"

He turned to his papers, but several times while I talked with him he
jerked his head up and listened to a heavy crash.

On the way back I saw a man on foot, walking in front of a mounted man,
past the old hill of the Scherpenberg, toward the village of Locre.
There was something in the way he walked, in his attitude--th