“We were not there long before the Germans commenced to lob hand grenades into the shell hole. How I escaped death I do not know: it was an awful experience to see those murderous bombs coming down and to be powerless to escape from them. I saw several of my poor men with limbs blown off dying in agony, and from what I learned subsequently much the same thing had happened in other shell holes where men had crawled for shelter. Out of my company of 82—we were not at full strength, and I had only three second lieutenants besides myself—I was the only one to come through alive. And I lay in a state of semi-collapse in the shell hole for two days before being rescued when our men drove the Germans out of their trenches.”
“A dreadful experience,” said Crewe sympathetically.
“These two miserable loathsome creatures, Brett and Lumsden, to save their own lives, had beckoned my company into the trap. They had been captured by the Germans, and no doubt were tortured in order to make them do what they did. But as British soldiers they should have died under torture rather than be guilty of treachery. The memory of how my poor men died without having a chance to defend themselves haunts me day and night. I hear their voices—their curses as they realized that they were the victims of a horrible act of treachery, their cries and moans in the agony of death.”
He sat down on the upturned clock case and buried his face in his hands.
CHAPTER XXVI
“Am I the first man to whom you have told this story?” asked Crewe, in a gentle voice.
“Yes,” said Marsland. “It is not a story that I would care to tell to many. It is not a story that reflects any credit on me—my company wiped out through treachery on the part of two of my men.”
“But when you came back to England, wouldn’t it have been better to have reported the matter to the military authorities and have had Brett and Lumsden tried by court martial?”
“I did not know they were in England until I came down here: I thought that if they were not dead they were prisoners in Germany. I have no witnesses for a court martial, and after being off my head in the hospital for a couple of months I doubt if a court martial would believe my story. Counsel for the defence would say I was suffering from delusions. And it would have driven me mad if such a scoundrel as Brett had been acquitted by a court martial for want of evidence. Besides, the satisfaction of having him shot was not to be compared with the satisfaction of shooting him down myself just as if he were a dog.”