Tenth Station Jesus is crucified Mark 15:24 More than I care to admit, I still think about it. In that hot country, where I served with comrades: men trained for war; keeping the peace among those strange people, with their single god; disliking each other but hating us more. Then the worst kind of duty – the crucifixion of yet another zealot; with myself and some of the lads, being ordered to carry it out. The trial had gone on for hours, with their priests against our Governor; while I stood with the prisoner, Jesus ben Joseph; odd, that I still remember his name. Good lads in my century, used to carrying out any task. Even so, it didn’t sit easy with us, executing that man; there was something about him, we could see that he wasn’t the usual fanatic; even so, we whipped him along, with the odd spear jab in his back, to show the crowd, who as usual were divided, some for the prisoner, more jeering and spitting at him: making more trouble than it was worth – to kill a man for. At Calvary he was already done in, looking around as though he shouldn’t be there; but nobody dies well on the cross, that was the point of it, so we did our duty, not liking it, but not making it worse than it had to be. So, we got him stripped, and we got him nailed up, and we did it as soldiers, immured to the job. The custom was that his worldly goods were shared equally between the men, and I saw it was done for the best; and some of it was quite nice, so for that they cast lots; and I can still see the lads below the cross, while his legs flexed on the rest. I am just an old soldier now; sitting on my terrace in the Alps, with a glass of cool wine, remembering so much; for on that day the world changed, but we did not know it then; it was just another crucifixion. But there was talk, and so it began; and they still come up here to ask me again, about what I saw, and said then. But no, I still can’t say; but what I do know though, is that an innocent man died – and that was enough.