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sir?” O’Reilly responded.
    “Take Smith to that wagon over there.” Harker pointed over the top of the trench to an overturned wagon in no-man’s-land. “Tie him to one of the wheels.”
    I heard a muted gasp from the men. Jenkins and O’Reilly looked at each other, their faces rigid with disbelief.
    “But there is no protection there. He’ll be blown to bits!” I exclaimed.
    The men turned fearful gazes on me as I questioned Harker’s decision.
    Slowly, the captain faced me. The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon behind him, and he seemed ringed with fire. “The enemy raiding party was not spotted until it had reached the barbed wire,” he told me, his voice calm and cold. “Smith’s forty winks might have cost us forty lives.”
    I could not deny it. Harker was right. Yet I did not know how he could order such a thing. Smith was not yet twenty, and a father-to-be.
    “No, sir!” Smith shouted as Jenkins and O’Reilly approached him. “I won’t do it again, sir. I promise!” He cowered as Jenkins reluctantly reached out to take his arm. O’Reilly grasped theother, and Smith tried to pull away. “No!” he cried, his eyes frenzied. This time his words came as a shriek.
    Harker said nothing.
    “Please!”
Smith cried the word again and again, his screams growing wilder as Jenkins and O’Reilly hauled him up one of the ladders and over the top of the trench.
    The three men stumbled over the uneven soil toward the wagon. Smith kicked and flailed. Jenkins and O’Reilly were forced to drag him.
    Harker ordered us all to watch while Jenkins and O’Reilly tied Smith at wrist and ankle, spread-eagled on the cartwheel like a martyred saint.
    “That is what happens to fools,” he growled. “And anyone thinking of untying that rope will find himself in similar circumstances.” Then he strode away to the dark seclusion of his quarters.
    When they’d finished, Jenkins and O’Reilly scurried back to the trench, leaving Smith alone and helpless in the rising dawn light.
    “Harker,” Jenkins spat.
    “What’s that? You often say you’d follow Captain Harker to hell if he asked you,” O’Reilly grunted.
    “Yes. But I didn’t think he’d make me one of his demons,” the corporal replied bitterly.
    Journal of
Mary Seward
    30TH
A UGUST 1916
    I have read only a small portion of Lieutenant Shaw’s journal and I no longer wonder at the horrors that addle his mind. The cruelties he has witnessed and the conduct of his commander, Captain Harker, are so unspeakable as to drive even the sanest of men insensible. Indeed, it is all described so vividly that I fear I shall see Harker’s face in my nightmares.
    I want to close this journal forever. I wish to burn it so Lieutenant Shaw need never look upon its terrible passages again.
    Still, I have not yet found a way to reach him. To show him that the horrors of war are behind him and that he is safe again. I do not want to, but I must read on. I only wonder what terrors await me.

C HAPTER 4
    War Journal of
Lieutenant John Shaw
    7TH
A UGUST 1916
    Harker went on another of his solitary raids last night. The men busied themselves once he had left, brewing tea or writing home. Trying to distract themselves, I suppose. But I know that like me, they were keeping one ear pricked for the sickening screams that would inevitably drift back from the enemy trenches. Screams the likes of which I have not heard—unless Harker is involved in battle.
    As dawn neared and the other men slept, I stood alone in the moonlight awaiting Harker’s return. I hoped to speak to him about Private Smith. Surely he had served his penalty and could be brought back intothe trench before it was too late.
    I heard a rustling above me and looked up with a start. The silhouette of Captain Harker towered on the brink of the trench. He stood there, in perfect stillness, his greatcoat flapping at his legs. He did not see me.
    I strained to glimpse his face. It was dark and shiny in the