To cheer up the war correspondents’ mess when we assembled at night after miserable days, and when in the darkness gusts of wind and rain clouted the windowpanes and distant gunfire rumbled, or bombs were falling in near villages, telling of peasant girls killed in their beds and soldiers mangled in wayside burns, we had the company sometimes of an officer (a black-eyed fellow) who told merry little tales of executions and prison happenings at which he assisted in the course of his duty.

I remember one about a young officer sentenced to death for cowardice (there were quite a number of lads like that). He was blindfolded by a gas-mask fixed on the wrong way round, and pinioned, and tied to a post. The firing-party lost their nerve and their shots were wild. The boy was only wounded, and screamed in his mask, and the A.P.M. had to shoot him twice with his revolver before he died.

That was only one of many little anecdotes told by a gentleman who seemed to like his job and to enjoy these reminiscences.