"The first man I had to help kill was a private in my own regiment, the Argyli and Sutherland Highlanders ... The victim was brought out from shed and led struggling to a chair to which he was then bound and a white handkerchiet placed over his heart as the target area. rolling down my cheeks as he went on trying to free himself from the ropes attaching him to the chair.
'I aimed blindly and when gunsmoke had cleared away we were further horrified to see that, although wounded, the intended victim was still alive. Still blindfolded, he was trying the poor man's temple.
officers.
the town of Etaples itself, The tears were hospital for the ordered to stop them. in charge stepped forward to put the finishing touch with a revolver held to the Such events as this infuriated the troops, as did the privileges of the Only officers were allowed in to commander, BrigadierGeneral Thompson, spent a large part his of 1917 trying to establish an officers' venereal diseases. The patience of the soldiers snapped on 9 September 1917, when 1,500 soldiers burst out of the camp into the town of Etaples, brushing aside a detachment tion.
The revolt was spontaneous and some of the men molested nurses on camp; Toplis organised detachment to guard the women's and issued instruction:
'Leave the women alone — get the military police.
• Toplis derived his authority from extraordinary personality reputation. Although between ages of 14 and 16 he was a miner, since the age of eleven he had been in trouble with the law as a confidence trickster and master of impersona*Private Toplis he was only occasionally. In the confusion of the Western Front he spent most of his