Kippen Miller

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.