A STRANGE STORY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2564, 11 September 1915, Page 2

A STRANGE STORY

SUSPENDED SENTENCES

CONDEMNED MAN RETURNS

British Headquarters, July 3. Not long ago a short Act of Parliament was passed dealing with military offences committed at the front. Now the feature- of many such offences is that while their seriousness from a military point of view necessitates tho heaviest penalties, they often cast, from the moral standpoint, no slur upon the offender. Punishment thus inflicted has therefore to aim at being deteiv rent, not reformatory, the most unsatisfactory objective that puuishment can have. StilJ, among many another unsatisfactory accidental of war that has to bp put up with, tho Act was framed to lessen as far as possible tha needless that might be doiie not only to the individual character, hut to tho Army itself. Tho Act was to legalise tho suspension of sentence and to put inthe offender's hands a.chanco of obtaining its entire remission,

Evasion of Service Prevented. It served incidentally another purpose—the frustration of attempts made by the few to escape from military, service by the commission of offences which would . entail civil confinement. There are always such men .in every army men > who have no stomach for their job, or, indeed, for any job that involves hardship and asks for stoutheartedness, and iii this war, at onco the most boring and most perilous of winch record exists, it is not surprising that a few such men aro to be found among us. [Fho Act has now frustrated their designs,and given to the less, .culpable comrade, who has fallen from-' grace through some weakness not of tho spirit, an opportunity to regain the goodwill of his fellow and the esteem flf those over him.

Though the Act lias not heen long in operation, its leniency has already been justified in quite a number of instances. In one cas.e it was but two daj's after Tcceiying a sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment that the culprit not only secured its remission, but was specially mentioned for exceptional gallantry in .carrying to a successful issue a bomb attack upon a German trench, after every member of the party except him 7 self liad fallen. Another man, also under a long , sentence, freed himself from its consequences by a. cool indifference ft) death in succouring the wounded under fire, and half a dozen further instances could be : given of fine deeds which have won for the doer not only rehabilitation as a soldier, but admiration ns a, man. '

A Death Sentence. But the most curious instance of benefit from the Act demands a more extended' telling, not-only for the quaintliess of _ its tragi-comedy, but for tho almost incrediblo illumination winch it sheds 011 the British soldier. A man bad been sentenced to death. His offence, almost the gravesb that war knows, was sleeping at his post in face of tho enemy. For such an offence there are no extenuating circumstances.. If- there bad been, he might have claimed them all. -He had been under fire in the trenches for four nights and days, and the exhaustion that .follows upon prolonged exposure to .danger ■seems often a? impossible to resist as tho snow-sleep to which men yield though aware that certain death •is the consequence, The man was sentenced to be;shot at dawn on the morrow; during . tho •night he disappeared. ' What exactly 'happened to him then has not yet come into the story. It: ; is' known t-o himself alcne. All that is' at present certain is that, by some means or other, he got into conflict with the enemy and was wounded. Now it is not particularly difficult to get wounded out here; but it is liot so easy, when wounded apart from your proper unit, to prevent your presence exciting surprise, mid perhaps challenging investigation. However, busy times come to hospital staffs, when everything is subordinate to tho saving of life and the alleviation of pain, and it would hardly occur to the most suspicious to look askance at anyone wearing that- red seal to his valour, or to imagine him as guilty of. an off'.*:ieo in obtaining it. Bosides, there was the man's name and number, and the battalion to which lie. belonged. Ho made 110 attempt to conceal anything, and so. a short iimo after he should, legally, have ceased to breathe, he was received at a collectingstation, obtained first aid for his wound, and was forwarded to the field hospital. His wound was serious, and in due time lie ,was sent down to tho base and shipped across tho Channel to a London hospital. .

There, as lie began to recover, lie was given tho time, of his life l)y the kindlyfolk who can still remember that wo are at' war. He was driven in the Park, taken to'garden narties. treated to tlie theatre, carried off into tlie Country, and admired by everyone wlio could get within reach or speech of him. All of which' was iio doubt exceptionally pleasing to a man who ought to have been dead.

Condemned Man's Return. When he could move about 'again by himself lis was dispatched to a convalescent homo, where lifo was delightful, and everything that could be thought of was done to amuse him. He felt that, without repining, ho could have stayed on there for ever. However, duly reported sound again, ho. was' given a most satisfactory furlough, and discovered, once more among his own people, that lie had by 110 means exhausted all the privileges of - a hero. They, nono of.them, of course, suspected that 'ho ought to have been dead. Ho captured tho hearts of all, and did 110 small-business in obtaining recruits to fight for his country. His furlough ended, ho was directed to rejoin 'at the depot; and there, perhaps, the puzzle'or liis psychology begins. All tho rest may have been impulse, but hero was determination. He did rejoin. Ho was a condemned man, and ho had done nothing to oraso that' condemnation. Ho had slipped in some inexplicablo fashion through the" closedrawn meshes of tho administrative net that oncloses tho soldier, and hero ho was of 'his own accord placing himself in that net again. He rejoined at tho depot, and was. sent out with tho first draft to the front..

Tho sergeant-major, -when he ' saw him, looked moro amazed than if ho had .seen his ghost. "Well, of all the infernal impudence!" ho managed, before words failed him. He thought that a man who had been sentoncod to death might at least havo had tho decency not to put 'his senteneors in such _ a quandary. What was to be dono with a follow who could not take seriously oven his own death sentence? The man stood at attention with no words to say. Perilups ono need hardly add that tho sentence was not carried into execution, The man was sentenced on some other charge—possibly of fighting Germans 011 his own account, which produced a kind of desertion —and tho sentence was suspended by virtue of the act. By this, it may be, ho has already wiped the sentence off t!li© chargo sheet by somo act of gallantry. But can a more irresponsible piece of psychology bo imagined P How is one to sample the springs of action behind such a mentality—so stupid, so reckless, so quaintly human,. and so wise. The itwe fijol wultl have koked the tuiaM* cJj tafr&ad

j fellow back to them, feeling safest with tho comrades who had condemned Mm to death. The Courage Problem. Olio thing which the Act has pro rod, or illustrated perhaps, oho should ratbor say, is how dependent courage is on condition, or possibly conditions is moro comprehensive. In ono caso a man _ was sentcnccd to a long term of imprisonment for what seemed to bo a flagrant act of cowardice, for-which ho was unable to advanco tho least cxcuse. let before tho week ill which ho was sentenced wasout ho had proved himself coolly indifferent to tho very danger whicn had ovorwholmed him before. Such instances, wjiicli aro multiplying under the Act, should niako very cautious our estimate of courage and our criticism of what may seem to bo a delect of it. Never before in war, perhaps, t were a man's fine qualities less certam}y at his command. A D.S.O. was won the other day by a pure act of valour; no dash, no inspiration; just a- cool indifference to death The officer looked back oil tho mira'clo of his preservation without a quickened PJllsc, without even the faintest suspicion that his nerve bad been tried. Yet us nerve had not'only been tried, but broken, broken beyond immediate prospect of repair. Somo men's nerves break before their deed of courage, some after it. Tho little difference in time means the big difference between disgrace and honour/ The men ir|ay have been equally ' brave, but the nerve centres, or nervo channels, of tho lucky one were in better condition; tlioy held out long enough for him to win the world's regard. It is a trite thing to say that no war lias over sapped so subtly the springs of man's courage; so starved his nerve supplies before it forced his ,surrender. Let remembrance of that bo at hand always to make our judgments merciful.—"Morning Post 1 ' Correspondent. "