'Certainly--only, thank God, there are not so many of them who need it. All that chat you read about the "wonderful fatalism" of the British soldier is so much bunkum. It simply means that most of them are not cursed with an imagination, and so don't worry about what's coming.' 'That's true; you don't see many fatalists in the middle of a big strafe.' 'Of course there _are_ lots of them who _are_ made like Penrose, and with a record like his, something----' 'And it's damned lucky for the British Army there are not more of them,' put in Constable. 'Certainly, but it's damned unlucky for them to be in the British Army--in the infantry, anyhow.' 'And what does that matter?' 'Oh, well, you can take that line if you like--but it's a bit Prussian, isn't it?' 'Prussia's winning this dirty war, anyhow, at present.' So the talk rambled on, and we got no further, only most of us were in troubled agreement that something--perhaps many things--were wrong about the System, if this young volunteer, after long fighting and suffering, was indeed to be shot like a traitor in the cold dawn. Nine times out of ten, as Williams had said, we knew that it would not have happened, simply because nine men out of ten surrender in time. But ought the tenth case to be even remotely possible? That was our doubt. What exactly was wrong we could not pretend to say. It was not our business. But if this was the best the old men could do, we felt that we could help them a little. I give you this scrap of conversation only to show the kind of feeling there was in the regiment--because that is the surest test of the rightness of these things. They were still at it when I left. And as I went out wearily into the cold drizzle I heard Foster summing up his views with: 'Well, the whole thing's damned awful. They've recommended him to mercy, haven't they? and I hope to God he gets it.' II But he got no mercy. The sentence was confirmed by the higher authorities.