system, and how much of a factor will it be to reckon with in the
future?

There were four prisoners quite separated from the rest of us. It
was said that they were sentenced to be shot. I am not sure that
they were; but we were strictly forbidden any intercourse with
them. They were the most crestfallen, terror-stricken lot of men
that ever I had laid eyes upon, and at four o'clock they were led
away by a cordon of soldiers. There was enough mental suggestion
about it to plunge the room into a deep silence. It was oppressive.

At last Obels, the reporter, walked over and asked me if there
were proofs of the immortality of the soul, excusing himself by
saying that up to this time he had never had any particular time nor
reason for reflection on this subject. That was the only
psychological blunder that he made. However, it at last broke the
heavy, painful silence, and we speculated together, instead of
singly, how it might feel to have immortal bliss thrust upon us from
the end of a German musket.

I related to him my experience of the previous week. Some war
photographers wanted a picture of a spy shot. I had volunteered to
play the part of a spy, and, after being blindfolded, was led over
against a wall, where a Belgian squad leveled their rifles at me. I
assured him that the sensation was by no means terrible; but he
would not be comforted. Death itself he wouldn't mind so much, if
he could have found it in the open fighting gladly for his country;
but it seemed a blot on his good name to be shot for just snooping
around the German lines.