One poor little man came to me. He was a half-wit. It was getting on in the war when we were getting very poor material out and he was posted to my Company and he ran away, and he was caught and ran away again, deserted, and he was court-martialled to be shot, and I had to pick, together with my Sergeant-Major, ten men to shoot him, which we did, and one of my Subalterns had to be in charge of the party with a revolver, and he was shot. I wrote to his mother, 'Killed in Action' and I think that's what they were told in every case. I wasn't present at the execution. I didn't want to be.

Captain C.S. Slack, East Yorkshire Regmnt.

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