The Execution

I didn’t want to kill him. He was like a father to me, to many of the younger troops in my brigade. The sergeant taught us how to shoot, how to drink, how to tell stories around the fire. He waited for everyone else to be served before he took a bite. I met many officers in my time in the army, and every one of them was cold and hard except the old man. He was warm—he had a kind heart and a soft face, punctuated with a bushy white mustache. He could have lived happily with a commission from the Crown, but the army was his life, and he took pleasure in raising up the young men of its ranks.

When the sergeant invited me to join him on this assignment, I jumped at the opportunity. I hoped to learn more from him and for a chance to prove myself among my peers. Chances came. I got promoted.

None of the men here knew the sergeant, you see. Only by reputation. And it was clear that the general, a man with a face carved from stone, did not care for it. Despite that, I got on well with the other officers. I saw less of the sergeant as the others invited me to their tents and wanted me to eat meals with them. The old man said he was happy I was making friends.

And I was happy too, despite the oppressive climate. It was hot and humid, unlike the cool weather of home. Even the nights were miserable. I spent most naked and without any covers at all yet still had trouble sleeping due to the unrelenting sweat and the ceaseless chorus of jungle animals.

Things went well, nevertheless. The Empire was well-established here, so we were welcomed many places we went. But on occasion, an outlying group or village would resist.

Our unit was sent into a village that opposed the Crown’s wishes. We marched in to take control of the situation. Our suffocating uniforms clung to every inch of skin. Many of my fellow officers and infantrymen waved their guns in the locals’ faces. Now, I didn’t see what happened, but the story was that the sergeant asked a soldier not to kill any rebels. All I heard was two gun shots, and then an infantryman pushed the old man out into the street at gunpoint.

At the general’s order, the sergeant was confined to his tent with a guard posted at the entrance until he could make a decision on how to handle him.

“He interfered with a representative of the Crown in the performance of his duties,” the general told me curtly. “That’s treason.”

Treason. The word strangled me.

“But, sir, surely you’re not saying that the sergeant deserves …” I tried to start over. “I mean, no one is more loyal to the Crown than him. Sir.”

The general’s chair creaked as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. Sweat glistened on his brow in the low lamp light of his command tent. He looked me over with accusatory eyes.

“Are you siding with a traitor?” His words were slow and methodical.

“N-no, sir.”

After a moment, the general dismissed me. I stutteringly saluted before retreating from his tent.

I was summoned to a meeting of the officers in the camp. Though I was punctual, I was the last to arrive. The others greeted me with cold looks, and it seemed they had already made a decision. The colonel explained their plan while the general watched me.

“Me?” The question slipped out before I realized how insubordinate it sounded. I looked around the tent, hoping that somehow no one had heard.

“Yes, you,” the general said. “To make certain you irrevocably understand the consequences of treason.” His cold eyes scanned the group. “I want this done before I return.”

We all saluted as the general left and followed him out. Every other officer looked at me as they left the tent one by one. The general left camp that evening in an ornate carriage, off to share champagne with some wealthy local leader, no doubt.

At supper time, the colonel dismissed the guard outside the sergeant’s tent and invited the sergeant to the mess tent with the rest of the company. I could not look at the sergeant all evening. The other officers brought drinks to him. At first he politely refused, but at their insistence—at the request of the general—he accepted. They brought him drink after drink. They told him they were celebrating. They got him to sing and tell old war stories. It seemed like any other evening meal.

I felt sick. This was more than the usual punishment for treason. This was humiliation.

The colonel ordered me and another officer to help the sergeant to his feet. We put his arms around our shoulders and helped him walk. The sergeant kept singing as we dragged him out of the mess tent. His bushy white mustache and beige uniform were stained amber from spilled beer. At the colonel’s order, we followed him to the general’s personal tent. I had not heard this was part of the plan, but I was hardly going to object.

Before entering, the colonel turned around and lightly tapped the sergeant’s rosy red cheek.

“Congratulations,” the colonel said more loudly than was necessary, “You’re being sent home. You get to spend your last night in the general’s tent. It’s a great honor!”

“A grey hour…” the sergeant mumbled.

We followed the colonel in and flumped the sergeant onto the bed. The other officers entered the tent behind us. I sat on a stool at the sergeant’s bedside as he swam through the alcohol in his head. Tears ran down my face.

The colonel, along with a couple other officers, grabbed some bed sheets and started knotting them together to string them into a makeshift rope. Then the colonel reached a hand out to me.

I gave him a confused look.

“Your belt. Give it to me.”

The word “Why?” started to form on my lips, but I stopped myself. In short, jerking motions, I unclasped my belt and handed it to the colonel.

The sergeant grabbed my wrist as he slurred, “There’s ne’er a sunny day withou’ firs’ a grea’ rain cloud. Chin up, lad.” I didn’t know what he meant, and he kept spouting nonsensical proverbs in that fashion.

The colonel looped my belt on itself and lashed it to the end of the makeshift rope. Another officer slung the other end over a sturdy pole.

The sergeant yanked me into the bed by the wrist, over his legs. He wanted me to sing with him.

“Dammit, man, just do it,” the colonel said as he handed the belt back to me.

“Do wha’?” the sergeant asked through droopy eyelids.

“Nothing, sir.”

I awkwardly pushed myself up and over the sergeant’s legs so I lay next to him. I slipped my belt over the sergeant’s head and around his neck. The other officer handed me the end of the rope.

I looked to the colonel, hoping for a revelation in the eleventh hour that this was all some grand joke on me. That the sergeant was in on the whole thing. But the colonel just nodded grimly.

I swallowed. The lump remained in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I pulled on the rope.

“Are you hanging me?” the sergeant asked.

“No.” The lie burned.

I pulled the rope. The belt tightened.