March 29, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
39 
Ami 
Then 
hoarsely, ' Isn't this enough to move a heart of stone ? 
to go on my knees to you ' 
" Again a deep silence fell upon the three of us. 
the French officer uttered his last word of anger. 
" ' Milksop ! ' 
" Tomassov didn't budge a feature. I made up my mind 
to go and fetch a couple of our troopers to lead that miserable 
Frenchman away to the village. There was nothing else for 
it. I had not made ten paces towards the group of horses 
and orderlies in front of our squadron when . . . But 
you have guessed it. Of course. And so did I. For I give 
you my word that the report of Tomassov's pistol was the 
mo-it insignificant thing imaginable. The snow certainly 
eems to absorb sounds. It was a mere feeble pop. Of the 
rderlies holding our horses I don't think one turned his 
head. 
"Yes. He had done it. Destiny had led that Frenchman 
to the only man who could understand him perfectly. But 
it was poor Tomassov's lot to be the predestined victim. 
You know what the world's justice is and mankind's judgment. 
It fell heavily on him, with a sort of inverted hypocrisy. 
Why that brute of an adjutant himself was the first to set 
going horrified allusions to the shooting of a prisoner in cold 
blood ! Tomassov was not dismissed from the service of 
course. But after the siege of Dantzic he asked for permission 
to resign from the army, and went away to bury himself in 
the deptlis of his province where a vague story of some dark 
deed clung to him for years. 
" Yes. He had done it. And what was it ? One warrior s 
soul paying its debt a hundredfold to another warrior's 
soul by releasing it from a fate worse than death — the loss 
of all faith and courage. You may look on it in that way.' 
I don't know. And perhaps poor Tomassov did not know 
himself. But I was the first to approach that appalUng dark 
group of two : the Frenchman extended rigidly on his back, 
Tomassov down on one knee rather nearer to the feet than to 
the Frenchman's head. He had taken his cap off and his hair 
shone hke gold through the light snow that had begun to fall. 
He was stooping over the dead in a tenderly protecting 
attitude ; and his young, ingenuous face with, lowered eyelids 
expressed no grief, no sternness, no pity ; but was set in the 
repose of a profound, as if endless and endlessly silent 
meditation. Joseph Conrad 
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A Gallant Soldier's 
Testimony 
LIEUT.-GEN. SIR FRANCIS LLOYD, 
General Officer Commanding tfie London District, recently said : 
" My experience of the Salvation Army is this, that whenever 
I want anything, if I ask them to do it, it is done ! 
" And the Salvation Army have been among the pioneers of good in 
London. There is a Home in Lambeth which was started in the very early days to help the Soldiers — 
a Home unostentatious, but which has been wholly for good. 
" There is another Home close to Liverpool Street, whither 
men are often sent to sleep, and which is as good (I have often 
been there very late at night) as any place of the sort in London. 
This is a great work, for the men coming from the Front are prone 
to fall into dangers and difficulties ; therefore, it is our bounden duty 
to make things as safe and as certain for them as we possibly can. 
" I say advisedly that I know of no organisation in the whole 
world that has been more unselfish than the Salvation Army." 
AT THE REQUEST of the iilllLITARY AUTHORITIES 
the Salvation Army has already opened a large number of Hostels in London and 
the Provinces for Service Men home on leave, but the maintenance of these and its 
other war operations, such as Ambulance work on the fields of battle, the visiting of 
sick and wounded in the Military Hospitals, its Huts at work in the different camps 
(of which we have over 100 in this country), etc., is a great financial strain. 
Cheques should be made payable to GENERAL BOOTH, crossed " Bank of Eniiland 
Law Courts Branch, War Fund a/c." and sent to him at QUEEN VICTORIA STREtsT 
LONDON. E.C. 4. 
