WHO GOES THERE!
CHAPTER I
IN THE MIST
They had selected for their business the outer face of an old garden wall. There were red tiles on the coping; dusty roadside vines half covered the base. Where plaster had peeled off a few weather-beaten bricks showed. Bees hummed in the trampled herbage.
Against this wall they backed the first six men. One, a mere boy, was crying, wiping his frightened eyes on his shirt-sleeve.
The dry crash of the volley ended the matter; all the men against the wall collapsed. Presently one of them, the boy who had been crying, moved his arm in the grass. A rifle spoke instantly, and he moved no more.
There came a low-spoken word of command, the firing squad shouldered rifles, wheeled, and moved off; and out of the sea-grey masses of infantry another squad of execution came marching up, smartly.
A dozen men, some in sabots, trousers, and dirty collarless shirts, some in well-cut business suits and straw hats, and all with their wrists tied behind them, stood silently awaiting their turns. One among them, a young man wearing a golf-cap, knickerbockers, heather-spats, and an absolutely colourless face, stood staring at the tumbled heaps of clothing along the foot of the wall as though stupified.