A very short post, hardly a yard high, was implanted a few paces
from the hedge, composed just there of young trees. "It was there,"
he said, "that they shot a soldier of the 204th this morning. They
planted that post in the night. They brought the chap here at dawn,
and these are the fellows of his squad who killed him. He tried to
dodge the trenches. During relief he stayed behind, and then went
quietly off to quarters. He did nothing else; they meant, no doubt,
to make an example of him."

We came near to the conversation of the others. "No. no, not at
all," said one. "He wasn't a ruffian, he wasn't one of those toughs
that we all know. We all enlisted together. He was a decent sort,
like ourselves, no more, no less--a bit funky, that's all. He was in
the front line from the beginning, he was, and I've never seen him
boozed, I haven't."

"Yes, but all must be told. Unfortunately for him, there was a
'previous conviction.' There were two, you know, that did the
trick--the other got two years. But Cajard, [note 1] because of the
sentence he got in civil life couldn't benefit by extenuating
circumstances. He'd done some giddy-goat trick in civil life, when
he was drunk."

"You can see a little blood on the ground if you look," said a
stooping soldier.

"There was the whole ceremonial," another went on, "from A to Z--the
colonel on horseback, the degradation; then they tied him to the
little post, the cattle-stoup. He had to be forced to kneel or sit
on the ground with a similar post."