Killed in action

“ I had heard, and that from authority which appeared not to be doubted, that you had been mad enough to engage in a duel, notwithstanding all the principles which I have endeavored to instill into your mind; that you had killed your adversary, and that the slain man was your cousin Henry. Now I have ever held, and have endeavored to teach you to hold, that dueling is not only murder, but murder of the most aggravated kind. The slaughter of the man may take place by accident--by a hasty blow in a moment of passion--in self-defense, when suddenly assailed--or in a general tumult or commotion ”

“ And yet at this time their friends—and they had many—believed them to be honorable and honest, if desperate in conflict. They knew that they had killed many men, but this was excused, because the men killed were enemies, and the killing was done in combats. ”

“ If this circumstance abated the wonder the soldier had at first felt on the score of a man being killed at so short a distance from his own party, without any one hearing the shot, he was still more at a loss to know how one of the dead man's race, proverbial for wariness and vigilance, should have been approached by any merely human enemy so nigh as to render fire-arms unnecessary to his destruction. ”

“ A single shot fired by some drunken fool in a German village, a single man of ours killed in a brawl, or murdered by a German out for vengeance, might lead to most bloody tragedy. Rumour was already whispering of ghastly things. ”

“ In the midst of a battle many men do things which would, at other times, fill them with horror. The excitement of combat seems to breed a lust for killing and the sight of blood is like a red flag to a bull. This, unfortunately, is not confined to Germans. One of our officers who had had a brother killed a few days before deliberately shot and killed several unarmed prisoners. ”

“ He struck the first blow. He killed. He struck the second blow then. He killed. He was striking and killing. There was one man at the end outside. When he came killing, drawing towards him, he went out of the row. He went up on the side of a hill.
“Death and destruction and the death-bands on you, champion of the red belt! It is you that are [90] doing the slaughter on this strand to-day. Don’t you know what country you came out of?—that it is out of a two-ended barrel you came in to the court and castle of the King of Greece?” ”

“ Apart from the elements of fear and honour, and in so far as the mere act of killing is concerned, there is but a difference of degree between the homicide who has stabbed a man in anger, and the soldier who has killed one enemy, or ten, in battle. In most cases the homicide is pursued by a fear of consequences to which the soldier is not subject. ”

“ And then again what a fearful glimpse of those blood feuds which, having once begun, seem as if they could never end, blood touching blood, and violence evermore provoking its like, have we in the following: Kill, and thou shalt be killed, and they shall kill him who kills thee. ”

“ The dead and wounded lay everywhere covered with terrible injuries, and the crying of the wounded, which might soften a stone, but not a soldier's heart, told of the awful pain which those "defenders of their country" had to suffer.
However, not all the soldiers approved of that senseless, that criminal murdering. Some of the "gentlemen" who had ordered us to massacre our French comrades were killed "by mistake" in the darkness of the night, by their own people, of course. ”

“ Thousands collected to gloat over the dying struggles of the criminals, and fought and roared and trampled each other to death in their horrible eagerness, so that hundreds were wounded or killed. Ten or a dozen were sometimes hanged in a row, men and women side by side. ”

“ Assembling his followers, he descended in the night, and guarding all the avenues to prevent escape, he set fire to the house of the probatim, who perished miserably with sixteen of his family, all of whom were burned alive, save a woman, who was killed by a rifle-shot when in the act of leaping from a window with an infant in her arms. ”

“ It consisted in the killing of a man, by whatever means and in whatever manner, whilst endeavouring to press him, and the immediate effect of the act, which was common enough, was to set up a remarkable contradiction in terms. The man killed was not the victim of the accident. ”

“ Try to go peaceably on your way, and you run into a mob and are killed by machine-guns, or you run into the Mercenaries and are killed by your own comrades from a roof. And on the top of it all the mob comes along and kills you, too. ”

“ Some were killed defending themselves; others, who thought themselves not condemned, without any defence; some let themselves die with hunger, or hanged, or drowned themselves, or threw themselves headlong from the tops of houses, or cast themselves into the fire, or ran to meet their murderers ”

“ You see, all those you strangle with ropes and shoot above graves dug out by men still living had and have fathers, brothers, wives, sisters, friends and like-minded followers, and if these executions spare you from those who are buried in the graves they generate, not only among those who were close to them, but among strangers too, twice as many enemies, twice as pernicious as those you have killed and buried in the earth. ”

“ There are certain recognised cries, which respectively signify the killing of a man and the taking of a prisoner, by which, when such an event occurs, the fighters on both sides are aware of it. An enemy wounded on the battlefield [183] may be killed at once or may be taken prisoner. ”

“ But if a man killed another secretly, he was declared an assassin and an outlaw, was deprived of all his property, and could be killed by any one who wished to do so. The fine or man-bote was heavier, the higher the rank of the person killed. ”

“ They had found their grave in French soil.
The murder did not cease as long as an opponent was alive. We were then ordered to see whether all the enemies lying on the ground were really dead or unable to fight. "Should you find one who pretends to be dead, he must be killed without mercy." That was the order we received for that tour of inspection. However, the soldiers who had meanwhile quieted down a little and who had thus regained their senses took no trouble to execute the shameful command. ”

“ 186THE MAN HE KILLED “Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
“I shot him dead because—
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although
“He thought he’d ’list, perhaps,
Off-hand like—just as I—
Was out of work—had sold his traps—
No other reason why.
“Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.” ”

“ To their eternal credit these men mainly decided that it was not, and two by two they turned away, went back to their cabins, hung their rifles up on the rack, and turned their thoughts to their own affairs.
But the hangers-on about the town were terribly enraged. " A man has been killed ! " they pro claimed aloud. u A man has been murdered by the savages ! ! We shall all be massacred ! ”

“ When Dick was killed last week he looked like that,
Flapping along the fire-step like a fish,
After the blazing crump had knocked him flat ...
"How many dead? As many as ever you wish.
Don't count 'em; they're too many.
Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?" ”

“ I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman’s billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery. ”

“ To wake once more to killing, killing, killing.
Give me the hunter's hand, the patriot's fervour
To hold death naught, or for my land to serve her,
Slay and still slay, with heart that holds no sorrow
For these dead men and all their carnal horror.
Was I not one who loved my land for growing
Sweet, eager life, and pretty things all blowing?
How glad these hands to give their toil, how willing,
That now, O God ! grow strong in killing, killing. ”

“ “For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?... ”

“ In times of peace we regard the murder of one person as something over which to get up a vast deal of excitement and much indignation, but in warfare we plan for the killing of thousands as a business matter and read of it often with actual elation. ”

“ A man whose business it was to slay these human victims and to whom practice had given dexterity, advanced from the crowd and thrust a sacred spear into the victim's side, piercing his heart. From the manner in which the slain man fell, omens were drawn as to the welfare of the commonwealth. ”

“ How can they do that dreadful, deliberate murder—for I can call it nothing else—when the defenceless man stands by his coffin on the brink of his open grave, and the hands of his comrades send to his bosom the deadly messengers! It is not right to take life away ”

“ Even so, in the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the desire of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness, being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars. ”

“ Thousands of unoffending people were suffering heartache, separation, desolation; and, as the guns reminded me, thousands of brave men were, a couple of miles away from us, facing at this moment, a murderous death. ”

“ Today the sacrifice of life incidental to quick success rarely calls for the actual spilling of blood. How decent are the pale slayings of the quack, the adulterator, and the purveyor of polluted water, compared with the red slayings of the vulgar bandit or assassin! Even if there is blood-letting, the long-range, tentacular nature of modern homicide eliminates all personal collision. What an abyss between the knife-play of brawlers and the law-defying neglect to fence dangerous machinery in a mill, or to furnish cars with safety couplers! ”

“ It was suicide. Others killed themselves with poison or with a revolver. I killed myself with minutes and hours." ”

“ The air echoes with the sound of the death-whoop, and of arms. The savage aspect of the combatants; their faces painted black and red, and some streaming with blood, and their frightful yells, make them appear like demons risen from the world beneath. The victims, too late aroused, spring from their fatal slumber, and foreseeing the dreadful fate which awaits them if taken prisoners, make almost superhuman struggles for deliverance. ”

“ The whizz of arrows, the crash of descending tomahawks, and the sharp rifle-shot, mingled horribly with the groans, the cries, and oaths of the murderers and the murdered. The floor of that log-house was heaped with the dying and the dead, yet the fight raged on with a fiercer and more blood-thirsty violence, till the savages prowled among the slain like a host of incarnate fiends, slaking their vengeance on the wounded and the dead, for want of other victims. ”

“ Viewed in the unclouded light of Truth, what is War but organized murder,—murder of malice aforethought,—in cold blood,—under sanctions of impious law,—through the operation of an extensive machinery of crime,—with innumerable hands,—at incalculable cost of money,—by subtle contrivances of cunning and skill,—or amidst the fiendish atrocities of the savage, brutal assault? ”

“ Who will pull down a house, or rob a church, more dexterously than one who has been trained to burglary and sacrilege? Who will plunge his bayonet into the enemy's heart, or rip up his bowels with more facility of execution, than a practised assassin, or thorough-paced cut-throat by profession? ”

“ But murder will out sooner or later,—'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' In spite of all their infernal cunning and midnight secresy, justice has overtaken these monsters, and never again may the annals of any age or nation be stained with such revolting criminality. ”

“ Our comrades had been slaughtered in a most inhuman and brutal manner, and slaves were trampling over their mangled and bleeding corpses. Revenge must have fired every heart, and strung every arm with nerves of steel, for the herculean task of blood. ”

“ Sufficient affirmation on both sides, Conflict again precipitated. One combatant gets overwhelming advantage, and follows it up from the way other combatant screams bloody murder. Bloody murder gurgles and dies out, undoubtedly throttled by a stranglehold. ”

“ The crowd rushing and eddying to and fro, the night, the yells, the pale faces, many fright [Pg 134] ened people trying in vain to extricate themselves, the attacked man, not yet freed from the jaws of death, looking like a corpse, the silent, resolute half dozen policemen, with no weapons but their little clubs, yet stern and steady through all those eddying swarms—made indeed a fitting side scene to the grand tragedy of the murder. ”

“ No one touched the grey-headed murderer, who knelt down—not to pray, but to look into his son's eyes—and to examine his lips—and to feel his left breast—and to search out all the symptoms of a fainting-fit, or to assure himself—and many a corpse had the plunderer handled on the field after hush of the noise of battle—that this was death. ”

“ That assassination which they preach to us as so terrible a misdeed we see nevertheless employed by them without either scruple or passion. Let us profit by the example. A violent death seemed to us a terrible thing in the descriptions of it that were made to us, but we see it is a matter of a moment. ”