“We marched to the quarry outside Staples at dawn.
The victim was brought out from a shed and led struggling to a chair to which he was then bound, and a white handkerchief placed over his heart as our target area. He was said to have fled in the face of the enemy.
Mortified by the sight of the poor wretch tugging at his bonds, twelve of us, on the order raised our rifles unsteadily. Some of the men, unable to face the ordeal, had got themselves drunk overnight.
They could not have aimed straight if they tried, and, contrary to popular belief, all twelve rifles were loaded. The condemned man had also been plied with whisky during the night, but I remained sober through fear.
The tears were rolling down my cheeks as he went on attempting to free himself from the ropes attaching him to the chair. I aimed blindly and when the gun smoke had cleared away, we were further horrified to see that, although wounded, the intended victim was still alive. Still blindfolded, he was attempting to make a run for it still strapped to the chair.
The blood was running freely from a chest wound. An officer in charge stepped forward to put the finishing touch with a revolver held to the poor man's temple. He had only once cried out and that was when he shouted the one word 'mother'. He could not have been much older than me. We were told later that he had in fact been suffering from shellshock, a condition not recognised by the army at the time. Later I took part in four more such executions.”
Victor Silvester describes a time before shell shock were officially recognised.
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