NO QUARTER
On the next excursion with the French I happened to see the shooting
of six prisoners. We set out from camp as usual at early morning and
moved up the coast for a distance of eight miles, with the object of
examining a well which in former dry seasons supplied Casablanca with
water and was now no doubt supplying the Arabs round about. By marching
in close formation and keeping always down in the slopes between hills
we managed to get to the well and to swing a troop of Goumiers round it
without being noticed by a party of thirteen Moors, of whom only three
were properly mounted.
The unlucky thirteen had no earthly chance. The Goumiers swept down
upon them, killing seven, and taking prisoners the remaining six. As
I was marching with the artillery at the time, I missed this little
engagement, and my first knowledge of it was when the prisoners trailed
by me on foot: six tall, gaunt, brown men, bare-legged, and three of
them bare-headed, none clad in more than a dirty cotton shirt that
dragged to his knees. They moved in quick, frightened steps, keeping
close to one another and obeying their captors implicitly. Allah had
deserted them and their souls were as water. The Goumiers, fellow
Mohammedans and devout--I have seen them pray--followed on tight-reined
ponies, riding erect in high desert saddles, their coloured kaftans
thrown back from their sword-arms--brown men these too, with small
black eyes and huge noses. French soldiers of the Foreign Legion
drove three undersized asses, carrying immense pack-saddles of straw
and sacking meant to pad their skinny backs and to keep a rider’s
feet from trailing ground. They were too small to be worth halter or
bridle, and the soldiers prodded them on with short, pointed sticks,
that brought to my mind Stevenson’s ‘Travels with a Donkey.’ One of
the Frenchmen brought along a gun, a long-barrelled Arab flintlock, an
antiquated thing safer to face than to fire. Besides this, I was told,
one of the prisoners had carried a bayonet fastened with a hemp string
to the end of a stick; the others seem to have been unarmed. They were
indeed a poor bag.
Without the least idea that such prisoners would be shot, I did not
follow to their summary trial, but moved, instead, over to a spring,
where some artillerists were watering their horses, while a dozen
sporting tortoises stirred the mud. The gunners had bread and water,
while I had none. Bread and water are heavy on campaign, and a few
cigarettes I had found were good barter. My cigarettes were distributed
and we were just beginning our breakfast, when a man standing up
called our attention to the Goumiers coming our way again with the
Moors. They were walking in the same order, the prisoners first in a
close group, moving quickly on foot, not venturing to look back, the
Goumiers, probably twenty, riding steady on hard bits.
‘_Pour les tuer_,’ said a soldier, smiling; ‘_Pour les tuer_,’ repeated
the others, looking at me to see if I smiled.
I shook my head in pity, for the doomed men were ignorant, pitiable
creatures.
A hundred yards beyond us were a clump of dwarfed trees and some
patches of dry grass, like an oasis among the rolling, almost barren,
hills; and for this spot the Moors were headed. Mechanically I went
on eating, undecided whether to follow, for I did not want to see the
thing at close range. I thought the Moors would be lined up in the
usual fashion, their sentence delivered, and a moment given them for
prayer. But suddenly, while their backs were turned, just as they set
foot upon the dry grass, quickly a dozen shots rang out almost in a
volley, then came a straggling fire of single shots. The single shots
were from a pistol, as an officer passed among the dying men and put a
bullet into the brain of each.
A young Englishman, the Reuter correspondent, rode over to me from the
other side and asked what I thought. It seemed to me, I said, rather
brutal that they were not told they were to die.
‘I don’t know,’ said the Englishman. ‘I should say that was
considerate. But the thing isn’t nice; it isn’t necessary.’
The Goumiers set fire to the grass about the bodies, and soon the smoke
and smell, brought over on a light Atlantic breeze, caused us to move
away.
Across the dusty, shimmering plains signal fires began to send up
columns of smoke, warning the Arabs beyond of our approach. But we were
going no further.
* * * * *
There is no censorship of news in England, but the English press
often decides what is good for the public to know and what it should
suppress. In my opinion the above affair, reported to the London papers
by their own correspondents, who were witnesses, should have been
published. But the papers either did not publish the despatches, or
else, as in the case of the _Times_ and the _Telegraph_, which I saw,
they gave the incident only the briefest notice, and placed it in a
more or less obscure position in the paper. This, on the part of the
London editors, was no doubt in deference to the British _entente_
with France. The question arises in my mind, however, whether a paper
purporting to supply the news has any right to suppress important news
that is legitimate.
The shooting of prisoners continued until I left Morocco; and I am of
the opinion that it goes on still. The French did not hide the fact;
as I have said, any of the officers would tell you that they took
no prisoners in arms. The Arabs opposing them, they pointed out,
were murderers who had looted Casablanca, attempted to slaughter the
European residents, and failing, had turned upon each other to fight
not only for plunder but for wives. What would have happened to the
European women, the Frenchmen asked, had the consulates not sustained
the siege? What happens to French soldiers who are captured? They
argued also that drastic methods brought submission more quickly.