They came for him early on a Tuesday morning, Army early, not normal early. Early before the sun came up. Early before the few birds that dared risk the close approximation to hell that was Eastern France in the first World War started singing their dawn chorus and before the Chaplain came around to ask if anyone needed to pray before breakfast.
There may not have been any birds, salvation, or daylight above the barbed wire, mud, and shell holes of no man's land, but His Company Commander was there, as was the Company Sergeant Major and Provost Sergeant. Behind them were the Platoon Commander and Platoon Sergeant, so with the four Burly Regimental Policemen as well it made the twelve-man underground dugout quite cosy.
They dragged him from his bed, a thin blanket left behind with his tobacco tin and spare boots and gave him two minutes to dress. The company commander stepped forward with a pocketknife and sliced the regimental buttons from his battledress then snatched his cap badge. The Major paused only to slap the man hard in the face as he pronounced him a disgrace to the Regiment, the Army, the Nation and the King and expressed a desire to see him punished before God, then performed as smart an about turn as his rank and circumstances allowed.
With a curt "Sarn't Major, Colour Mulligan, with me," he left. The two Senior NCOs showed that cramped conditions were no hindrance to performing smarter drill movements than Officers and marched out as if on a parade square.
The Platoon commander was a young man, more a boy really, no older than nineteen. A few straggly hairs on his top lip masquerading as a moustache. He stepped up to the prisoner and with what he hoped was a steady, commanding voice pronounced:
"You're a Bally Swine. An absolute disgrace. You've really shown yourself up."
His voice was neither commanding, nor steady, which gave the platoon sergeant a moment's sorrow that he was expected to take orders from that callow boy, then he too gave the prisoner a look of utmost contempt and followed his young superior out into the trenches. The young officer would meet his demise two months later, less than a hundred yards from the dugout, crying into his sergeant's shoulder as he bled out from a shattered leg. The Sergeant would survive the war but would forever find himself haunted by the horrors he and so many others endured.
The same horrors may be some explanation for the actions that led the prisoner to his fate that day, or it may be there was a deeper more visceral cause, maybe some people are just evil, forever.
The Regimental Police took him back through the trenches to a forward holding location for trial if you can call it a trial. At the time, early in nineteen-sixteen, there was a belief amongst the higher echelons of the British Army that quick and decisive treatment of prisoners was best. They said it provided a clear declaration that unacceptable behaviour would not be tolerated, promoted the standards to which all soldiers should aspire, and was good for the men's morale.
To further enhance the morale boosting properties of their actions the punishments were recorded photographically and sent to the front to be displayed on battalion noticeboards, alongside Part One Orders each day.
What no one considered was that seeing their comrades brutally punished for indiscretions from failure to correctly address an officer or incorrect dress at one extreme to capital crimes such as desertion and murder at the other only added to the all-pervading depression and fear that hung over the western front like a dark cloak. Beatings for a button undone on a trouser pocket, or firing squads for cowardice, or as we would call it now PTSD, emphasised the contempt in which the men felt their lives were held by their superiors.
For more serious crimes summary court martial by field officers was not only allowed, it was actively encouraged, all the better to get things done quickly "for the good of the service." Which is why Brigadier the Honourable Lord Aubrey-Hinshelwood and Colonels Allison, and Whittle convened a court martial two days later, on the Thursday, to hear the guilty man's plea and sentence him to execution.
The Brigadier was a tall man with red hair that he dyed black, and a distant look in his eye. He was often thought to be aloof, whereas in fact he simply had no point of reference with people that hadn't grown up on a five-hundred-acre estate in Suffolk, where he'd had his run of the female servants and the men were subservient to his every command.
He dyed his hair in the mistaken belief that red hair made him an object of ridicule amongst the men, in fact it was his reputation for sleeping with any woman that worked for him, his weak will and lack of leadership that made him an object of ridicule. That and dying his hair.
The accused prisoner's plea was non-existent, the charges were foul and the evidence unassailable. The clerk of the court read a summary.
"You have been found to be serving under a false name, and whilst so serving have been found guilty of looting and pillaging the private chapel of Monsieur Lecomte D'Alban, of stealing precious artifacts from said chapel, of murdering two of his estate workers and of the rape and murder of his cook, his housekeeper and an eighteen-year-old boy in the stables. I will now pass over to the Brigadier for sentencing."
The Brigadier stood and rather than put on his peaked cap he reached into the desk and took out a black wig.
"You have constantly refused to give your true name, so I sentence you under no name. The crimes of which you have been found guilty are so heinous, so terrible that I have no alternative but to issue a death penalty. In fact, they are so unspeakable that I relish the penalty, in the firm knowledge that the world, despite the hell hole in which we serve, will be a cleaner and purer place without you.
You will be taken from here to a place of execution where you will be shot by a squad of volunteers, and I assure you there will be no shortage of volunteers. Get him out of here Sergeant Major."
The Regimental Sergeant stamped his feet and turned to the prisoner. He had a voice that could carry across the battlefield so from a range of two feet it was deafening. "Prisoner, Prisoner 'Shun. Prisoner 'Shun. I said PRISONER FUCKING 'SHUN"
The condemned man turned slowly towards the red-faced NCO, fury at his subject's immobility etched across his being. For the first time in the entire proceedings, he spoke. "Or fucking what? Come on you pompous prick, let's get it over with." He stuck his hands pointedly in his pockets and shambled towards the door.
His shuffling was surprisingly quick making the RSM have to jump to catch up, "Guards, escort that man" he shouted in a vain attempt to restore his punctured dignity, but by then it was too late, and the prisoner was already on his way to the firing range where he spoke again.
"I'll have me fag and some booze now then."
Brigadier the Honourable Lord Aubrey-Hinshelwood reached the door in time to see the prisoner expertly rolling a smoke one handed and swigging from an enamel mug of rough navy rum, he paused mid gulp and pointed towards his judge.
"Know this, all of you. You ain't heard the last o' me. Kill me now and I'll chase you down the corridors of time. I'll find you, or yours, and I'll have my revenge. If it's tomorrow or a hundred years from now or more. I will fuckin' 'ave you."
