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