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moonlight. I squinted, then realised with horror that it was stained with thick red blood.
    Harker licked his lips clean of the stuff and gave a satisfied sigh.
    My own blood chilled at the sight. What kind of perversion was this?
    As the sun began to redden the horizon, Harker jumped down into the trench. He landed easily, nearly floating to the duckboards—as if it were a three-foot drop rather than an eight-foot one. He turned and strode away toward his quarters.
    For the first time, a hideous thought entered my mind: Captain Harker, so respected, so revered in battle, actually took a sick pleasure in his killing.
    If that were true, we were in the command of a madman.
    L
ATER
    Jenkins came to tell me that they’d brought Smith down.
    I jerked my head up incredulously. “You mean he’s survived?”
    “No. But his widow will be able to make a decent burial,” Jenkins informed me flatly.
    The news hit me hard. I wanted to weep. Because Smithwas dead—because his unborn child was already orphaned—and because my hope that he’d survived was so childish, so senseless.
    “I’ve been wonderin’ what it was that got him,” Jenkins continued. “He had no wounds—none that I could see. But his colour—it was beyond pale. And the look on his face was utter terror. Like he’d seen the face of the devil himself.”
    I turned away, wondering if Smith had simply died of fear—hanging there on that wheel while the earth around him exploded.
    If so, I thought bitterly, it is Harker who killed him—just as much as that German solider in our trench or any of the others he’s slaughtered. Smith’s blood is on his hands. May God have mercy on him for it.
    L
ATER
    Smith’s death has affected me badly. My body feels drained and my heart seems to lie heavy in my chest. To me, death in action had always been a thing of honour. Until now.
    The brutality of which Harker is capable shocks me. It seems vicious and cruel beyond belief, utterly unconnected with the world I have known.
    I wonder how I will be able to return to that world when all of this is over.
    11TH
A UGUST 1916
    Jenkins showed me a somewhat primitive way to kill lice today.
    “See!” He held the candle flame against the fabric of the jacket dangling from his other hand. “Run the flame along the seams ’cause that’s where the buggers breed. Move it slow enough to roast ’em but not long enough to singe your shirt.”
    “Is that the only way to get rid of the infuriating bloodsuckers?” I asked incredulously.
    “It’s the only way the army knows.” Jenkins grinned.
    The constant itching I experienced since coming to the trench had grown more and more unbearable as every piece of clothing I owned became infested with lice.
    I followed Jenkins’s example and took a candle to my own jacket. “I can hear their bodies crackling!” I declared, revelling in the sound of victory.
    “There’ll be more to replace ’em tomorrow,” Jenkins replied wryly.
    No matter. Today I’d be free of the lice. I ran my candle up and down each seam, killing and killing.
    Over the stink of burning insects, the smell of roasted meat filled my nostrils. I looked along the trench. Murray and Allen had caught a rat and skinned it. They were grilling it over their burner.
    My stomach churned. The unending diet of tinned slop had left us all craving meat, but to feast on the animals who fed off our fallen comrades? I wondered if Murray and Allen would detect the flavour of their brethren inside the bodies of the rodents.
    13TH
A UGUST 1916
    I was on a day shift today. The line crackled as I listened in to the German communications coming in from the saps. It was almost time for Butler to relieve me when I heard a rap on the door.
    “About time, you lazy …” My words trailed off as Captain Harker entered the dugout. I tensed, now undeniably uneasy in his company.
    “Anything of interest on the saps today, Lieutenant?” Harker asked, sitting on the edge of my