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Judgement and Punishment
You call me a coward
- You
call me a coward
- You
who sit in judgment here
- That's
easy for you to say
- When
no enemy shells fall near.
- You
call me a coward
- You
who want an example made
- You
say I must have run
- And
thrown away my gun
- You
say I must have fled
- For
all save I were dead.
-
- My
version of events
- You
reject out of hand
- You
say it’s good I survived
- The
hells of no man’s land
- For
it means I lived to die again
- In
front of true and trusting men
- Who've
swallowed all your lies
- And
would just as soon
- Shoot
one of their own
- Than
swat at bothersome flies.
-
- It
is dawn behind the battle lines
- The
daylight’s blossoming hour
- And
many of your own you murder
- So
no cowardice here may flower
- You
need to teach a lesson
- To
soldiers one and all
- They’re
fighting for King and Country
- But
their fate lies in your hands
- If
they fail to fall in battle
- They’ll
be shot against a wall
©
George Macintyre
.........
I have seen many
ghastly sights in the war, and hideous forms of death ... but
nothing ever brought home to me so deeply, and with such cutting
force, the hideous nature of war and the iron hand of discipline,
as did that lonely death on the misty hillside in the early
morning. Even now, as I write this brief account of it, a dark
nightmare seems to rise out of the past and almost makes me
shrink from facing once again memories that were so painful.
- Reverend
Canon Frederick Scott
- of Sergeant
William Alexander, 10 Canadian Infantry Battalion
- executed 18
October 1917, aged 37
-
-
...
The officer had loaded the rifles and had left them laying on the
ground at our position. We got into position and were warned to
fire straight, or we may have to suffer the same fate. The
prisoner was taken out of a car (we saw him get out, with a black
cap over his head and guarded) and placed on the other side of
the curtain.
If
we did not kill him, the Officer would have to. As soon as the
curtain dropped (the prisoner was tied in a chair five paces away
from us, a black cap over his heart) we got the order to fire.
One blank and nine live rounds. It went off as one. I did not
have the blank. The prisoner did not feel it. His body moved when
we fired, then the curtain went up. That was the easiest way for
an execution I had heard of. The firing squad only saw him for a
few minutes. We went back to the Battalion Orderly Room and got a
big tumbler of rum each, and we went back to our billets, ate,
and went to bed. We had the rest of the day off. It was a job I
never wanted.
- from It
Made You Think of Home the journal of Deward Barnes, CEF
- of the
execution of Private Harold Lodge
13 March 1918
-
.........
- Last
Post
-
- The
regimented clickety-clack
- Of
hobnailed boots on cobbles
- Command
my full attention
- There
is no turning back
- From
my destiny with dawn.
- Former
colleagues in arms shun
- Me
now, a coward in eyes
- That
have feasted on
- Half-truths
and outright lies.
-
- My
reveille will all too soon
- Become
my last post
- In
a corner of some Belgian courtyard
- That
will be ever England's shame,
- A
memorial to those murdered
- In
the King's name,
- A
military example pour encourager les autres
- With
no compassion for sons, daughters
- And
wives thrown on to unwelcoming streets
- As
further disgrace to disgraceful men
- Condemned
never to see the sun again.
©
George Macintyre
.........
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