They came for him early on a Tuesday morning, Army early, not typical 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 Business Commander was there, as was the Business 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 business 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 clever 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 discover 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 wondered 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.”

With that he took a mouthful of rum, picked up and struck a Lucifer, and spat the rum upwards across the sputtering flame.

Navy Rum is over 50% alcohol, so it ignited in an incandescent ball that burst upwards, the heat taking it twenty feet in the air where it caught the eye of a German Observer, suspended in a wicker basket below an observation balloon. He took a bearing with his compass, gave an approximation of distance over his field telephone handset and called in a fire mission.

The prisoner was tied to the post, a final roll up cigarette hanging from his lips, he refused a blindfold, swearing again and telling the firing squad he wanted to look them in the eye as he was shot, the photographer loaded a glass plate in his camera, he was trying a new process that differed from the Daguerreotypes of the earlier war years by using a mix of rare earths and, in a testament to ignorance of the potential consequences, Radium.

It was an expensive system so he wouldn’t use it for more than a month or two before the Silver Nitrate process was developed giving cheaper and more consistent results.

He wasn’t employed by the Army or the War Office, Lord Aubrey-Hinshelwood had retained him personally, most of his time was spent getting images of His Lordship looking authoritative, or heroic, or just distinguished. As part of his service, he was given a cottage on the Hinshelwood estate which he filled with experimental photographic equipment.

The firing squad loaded their Lee Enfield.303 rifles with one round each and in a synchronised movement born of too much practice they all prepared to shoot.

A split second before the rifles fired the photographer pulled opened his shutter and in that instant the barrage landed. The Observer and Mortar crew were among the best in the German army, dropping eight 71.8mm mortar rounds in a square no more than a dozen feet across, turning the firing squad, the prisoner and the two colonels into a fine pink mist mixed with mud and shrapnel.

The photographer was slightly luckier, in as far as he took a steel splinter through his abdomen that he survived but robbed him of any sensation below his chest for the next twenty years. His instinctive release of the shutter caught the instant of the first bomb exploding and silhouetted the prisoner and the three other shells in mid-flight.

The Brigadier was knocked backwards by the initial blast and suffered no more than a bruised shoulder and a superficial cut to his cheek, for which a grateful King later pinned a medal to his chest for bravery in action.

The picture was saved, but as it involved the deaths of many innocents as well as a criminal it was decided not to send it to the front, instead it was left with the photographer who took a morbid delight in developing it onto glass and mounting it in a frame so he could hang it in the window of his estate cottage and see the final moment of the prisoner’s life projected onto his wall.

Brigadier the Honourable Lord Aubrey-Hinshelwood returned to England shortly after his decoration by the King to take a role in the recruitment of more young men to be slaughtered in foreign mud, prior to departing for Rajasthan to take over the Northern Command of the British Indian Army, a post he held until his death in nineteen twenty-eight.

Lady Aubrey-Hinshelwood spent many happy days standing alongside her hero husband, basking in his reflected glory while encouraging mothers and wives to send their men off to die, both in England and India.

Both took to life in the twilight days of the Raj as if born for it, which of course in some methods they had been, she had never been interested in the intimate side of married life and was grateful both for her husband’s long absences visiting remote parts of his command and the traditional arrangements of separate sleeping quarters for the couple. She also chose not to ask what he got up to in the hot Indian nights, but both parties would take benefit of female Punkah Wallahs throughout the night.

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When Pasha Leghari woke up on Saturday with the after-effects of 2-for-1 cocktails night at “Minelli’s” night club thumping behind her eyes she went through a mental review process.

• Work? No, she’d come off nights on Friday morning and was free now until Tuesday early shift.

• Chores? No, all washing was completed, bed sheets changed, she’d even ironed her uniforms.

• Unexpected business? She checked the bed, no. Alone, mind you, she hadn’t got that drunk so she shouldn’t count that as a win.

• What was she doing today then?

Nothing was surfacing in her mind, so she dragged herself out of bed, pulled open the curtains to let the sun flood in, which caused a squint and a squeak of discomfort. Next was the kitchen where she filled the kettle, but as her flatmate chose that moment to switch off the shower she didn’t manage to avoid the spurt of water that shot out of the cold tap, soaking her T shirt, making it cling to her in a chilly wrap.

While the kettle boiled she pulled the shirt off over her head and threw it straight in the washing machine, preferring to stand topless rather than suffer the clammy embraces of her wet night wear, which would ordinarily have been fine but…..

The kitchen door opened behind her, she turned to ask Jacqui, her flatmate, if she wanted tea or coffee only to be greeted by Jacqui’s boyfriend, Alan. To give Alan his due, he was as embarrassed as Pasha, although he did take a moment or two to take in the sight of her light brown nicely rounded medium to large sized boobs, the darker brown nipples still standing out after the cold-water dunking.

Pasha’s waist was slim and her stomach flat and a tiny part of her was quite happy to be on show, knowing that she not only looked good but that her bum, which she considered her least attractive feature was facing away from Alan’s gaze. The only downer as far as Pasha was concerned were the tatty pyjama shorts she was wearing, if she’d had the opportunity to choose her outfit there was a Secret Rendezvous thong in her knickers draw that she all the time liked wearing for an audience.

Clasping her arms slowly across her chest Pasha giggled with surprise. “Oh, Alan, I forgot you were. Sorry, I’ll just”

Alan backed out flustered, “No, Sorry, look, I er, sorry.”

The giggles turned to laughter. “Stay there Alan, I’ll go and get dressed, I’ll have a tea, back in five.”

She gave a one-armed wave and sashayed out with the other clamped across her nipples, returning slightly more than the promised five minutes later, showered and dressed, by which time her Mojito dulled memory coughed up the day’s plans.

Alan was a junior doctor in the same teaching hospital where Pasha was a nurse, which was on the same university campus where Jacqui was a physics post graduate student working on her PhD in Fusion energy. She was without a doubt the smartest person out of the three of them, and annoyingly didn’t have any of the character failings TV and Hollywood would have us believe afflict the truly intelligent.

Jacqui was tall, slim and very pretty in a Lily James with red hair sort of way, and as Pasha walked back into the kitchen she had a sparkle in her eyes. “Pash, you’ve made Alan’s weekend already, even before we get to the show.”

Pasha waved it off, “Think nothing of it, I could tell he wanted to see what he was missing, but it’s a one-off event Alan, I’m not going to be your personal topless waitress from now on, ok?”

The poor man was virtually catatonic with embarrassment as the two girls teased him mercilessly for a minute or two longer until Jacqui relented and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Hey, it’s alright, we’re just messing with you. No one thinks you were perving on Pasha.”

Alan was the only one of them with a car, an aging but serviceable Golf Diesel that delivered all three to a country house about twenty miles away. Jacqui read from the National Trust website on her iPhone.

“Hinshelwood Manor, gifted to the National Trust by the last Lord Aubrey-Hinshelwood in nineteen fifty-seven on the death of his father blah bah death duties blah blah oh that’s interesting Pash, the father inherited as the sole male surviving relative of his uncle who”

Pasha broke in “Is this some new use of the word ‘Interesting’ I’ve not come across before? Because from where I’m sitting it’s anything but.”

A slim pink tongue poked out between Jacqui’s lips accompanied with two fingers being waved at her friend. She continued, “Uncle who died with no heirs whilst serving as Commander of the Northern Army Group in India in nineteen twenty-eight in Rawalpindi in what is now North-eastern Pakistan. Isn’t that where your family came from? Maybe your great grand parents knew him. Don’t you think it’s all so ‘Downton Abbey’? Lost heirs, inheritances, maybe a rogue uncle?”

Pasha settled into the rear seat and closed her eyes. “Yeah, right. You may want to read up on the British Empire in India, there’s no chance my Great Ammi socialised over tea and crumpets with Lady what was her name? Be sure to let me know if you find any more gems. I’m just catching up on my beauty sleep, not that I need it ‘cos I’m stunning, isn’t that right Alan.” Girlish laughter filled the car as Alan growled away to himself.

Hinshelwood Manor was hosting a display of military medicine in the field from Napoleonic times to modern day Afghanistan, including a Chinook helicopter kitted out with an operating theatre for Special Forces recovery work, which was what Alan and Pasha were there to see. Jacqui, being a physicist not a medic was less taken with bandages and gore and wandered away to a series of bric-a-brac stalls.

One of the stalls was filled with wartime memorabilia from the estate, poems written from the front in both World Wars, watercolours and sketches from the trenches and examples of comfort boxes sent to the troops containing chocolate, cigarettes, playing cards and woollen socks. Despite being a scientist Jacqui was a sensitive person and found the misery and despair cascading down the years started to affect her, tears welled making her eyes sting.

Wiping the tears away she spotted a framed picture of an explosion with what looked like a lone figure of a man staring straight into the camera between the expanding flames and the viewer. Three shells could be seen captured in a blur as they landed off to one side. Somewhere or sometime in the intervening century since nineteen sixteen the glass image had been colourised and colourised expertly.

As she stared at the picture it was as if she was there, the flames seemed to boil and flow, there was a strong smell of mud, decay, and body odour and a roaring blast of noise filled her ears. The single figure of a man in the image stared into her eyes, speaking to her over time, eager her to make contact.

Jacqui reached out and picked up the picture, she was surprised at the cool feeling of it, she’d expected it to be hot from the explosion inside, then shook her head at the stupidity of her expectation. A sticky paper label had what looked like £75.00 written on it, but as she put it back she noticed it said £15.00.

“Tempting” she muttered, but put it back anyway, fifteen pounds to a student was four days food or an evening at “Minelli’s”. She looked again, there must have been something in her eye, it said £5.00. Odd. “I could swear..” she shook her head. A fiver was in the right ballpark.

She held it up to the lady running the stall. “Open to a haggle? Three pounds and a great review on TripAdvisor?” The stall holder laughed. “I’ll take your three quid love, truth to tell I’ll be glad to see the back of it, gives me the creeps, seeing a man die like that.”

Jacqui gave a wan smile, “Yes but if no one remembers them then what did they die for?” she responded. “Can I get a paper bag for it please?” for some reason, possibly the creepy nature of it, she didn’t want to explain to Pasha and Alan what she’d bought and moved on to a stall selling craft items where she spent a lot more than she meant to on some woven willow baskets.

The three friends met for a late lunch, Pasha was full of enthusiasm for retraining as a combat medic, although as with many of her enthusiastic ideas Jacqui would wait to see if she was still as excited in a week. Alan drove them a few miles up the road to the Aubrey Arms, where they sat under an oak tree with two halves of lager and a Lime and Lemonade for the driver and three cheese Ploughman’s lunches.