‘Now, Sergeant, get back to the old school building. General Bruce needs your help in setting up an office again.’

‘I could stand guard here, sir,’ Silver Hand said with a soft whine in his voice. ‘Give me your pistol and I’d shoot him if he tried to escape.’

‘I gave you a direct order, Sergeant,’ Captain Ellis said with rising anger. ‘Report to General Bruce. If you disobey or question that order you will be tied to the post and shot alongside the boy. Do I make myself clear?’

The man’s mouth was tight as a tortoise’s. He gave Aimee a look of hatred, turned on his heel and marched down the farm path towards the town where smoke from the smouldering buildings still turned the air thick and the sun dim.

‘Are you really going to shoot Marius?’ Aimee asked. ‘He may be able to tell you what that traitor was saying on the radio just now.’

Captain Ellis looked serious. ‘It’s difficult. Grimm is right. The law says the boy must be shot. But...’

‘But?’

‘Look after him. Feed him and get his strength back. I’ll send a guard,’ Captain Ellis said briskly. ‘I’ll arrange a firing squad.’

‘You can’t,’ Aimee cried.

The captain’s face softened. ‘Maybe they’ll miss, eh, Aimee? Maybe they’ll miss.’

Chapter Four: ‘While there’s life, there’s hope’

Chapter Four

‘While there’s life, there’s hope’

25 August 1918: Bray

‘I’d like to volunteer for the firing squad, sir,’ Sergeant Grimm had said.

‘You want us to shoot you?’ General Bruce had replied with a surprised gasp.

Silver Hand sucked in his cheeks to control his temper. ‘No, sir. I would like to shoot the German spy.’

‘You haven’t fired a rifle since you lost your hand. And anyway the Canadians are in the Bray sector. It’s their job.’

‘They won’t like it, sir,’ said the man with the silver hand. ‘Men don’t like executing an unarmed man – even an enemy. You could trust me to do the job.’

General Bruce’s face turned a little red. ‘Grimm, I have said no and that’s an end to it.’

Grimm swallowed hard, muttered, ‘Sorry, sir,’ and scuttled from the room.

He had gone straight to the army stores and borrowed a pair of binoculars. Now he stood on the edge of the wood above the Fletcher farm and watched. He had to be sure.

There were twelve men in the firing squad. Riflemen from the Canadian army. They dragged their feet as they marched up the lane to the barn. No one wanted this job.

They formed a line, facing the side wall of the barn. Twelve rifles stood on the ground in front of them. There was a post driven into the ground at the side of the barn with a chair in front of it.