"Well, your regiment's in the trenches. They relieved us sudden like last night, owing to us getting cut up. You see, they Germans attacked us and killed a good few of our chaps before we drove 'em out again, so the Downshires 'ad to come up and relieve us late; somewhere about eleven o'clock they must 'ave left 'ere. What are you doing of, any'ow?" he asked jokingly. "Are you a bloomin' deserter what's come to be arrested?" But he posed the question to empty air, for Williams was retracing his steps at a steady double.
"Seems to me that bloke 'll get hisself inter trouble," said the sentry of the Westfords as he spat in disgust. Then he forgot all about it, and fell to wondering what the bar of the Horse and Plough must be looking like at the moment.
John Williams knew that he had burnt his boats, and he became a deserter in real earnest. For several weeks he remained at large, and each day made the idea of giving himself up of his own accord more difficult to entertain; but at last he was singled out from among the many men who wander about behind the firing line, and was placed under a guard that put hope of escape out of the question. Not even the wander thirst in his gipsy blood could set his feet on the wide chalk road again, or give him one more night of freedom.
"He might have a long term of imprisonment, mightn't he, sir?" asked the junior member of the Court Martial. "He could have no idea that his regiment was suddenly warned for the trenches when he deserted. Besides, the man used to be a tramp, and it must be exceptionally hard for a man who has led a wandering life to accustom himself to discipline. It must be in his blood to desert." And he blushed slightly, for he sounded sentimental, and there is little room for sentiment in an army on active service.
The President of the Court was a Major who liked his warm fire and his linen sheets, which, with the elements of discipline and warfare, occupied most of his thoughts. "I fear you forget," he said rather testily, "that this is the twelfth occasion on which this man has made off. I have never heard of such a case in my life. Besides, on this occasion he was warned that the Downshires were in the trenches by the sentry of the Westfords, and, instead of giving himself up, he deliberately turned round and ran off, so that the excuse of ignorance does not hold water. That the man was a tramp is, to my mind, no excuse either—the army is not a rest home for tired tramps. The man is an out-and-out scoundrel."
So the junior member, fearful of seeming sentimental and unmilitary, timidly suggested the sentence of death, to which the other two agreed.
"We must make an example of these fellows. There are far too many cases of desertion," said the Major, as he lit his pipe and hurried off to his tea.
Thus ended the career of No. 1234 Pte. John Williams, formerly a tramp in the west of England, unmourned and despised.