Hamish was his penance for what he'd done in the war: a voice that was relentless and unforgiving, like the guilt that haunted him. In life Corporal Hamish MacLeod had been the closest thing Rutledge had had to a friend during the darkest hours of the Somme Offensive, despite the vast difference in rank between them. The young Highlander would have made sergeant if he'd survived the battle. He was a natural leader, the sort who cared for his men and understood the tactics of war. But that had been his undoing. Refusing a direct order on a battlefield had led to a firing squad. It wasn't cowardice, it was an unwillingness to lead tired and dispirited men in another useless charge against a well-concealed machine gun nest. Yet even knowing as well as Hamish did what it would cost in lives, knowing that it was impossible to dislodge the enemy, Rutledge had had no choice but to give the order to try one more time in an effort to clear out the nest before the main attack began along the entire line. The few sacrificed for the sake of the many. And then as an example to his men, he'd had no choice but to give the order to fire that had ended Hamish's life. Military necessity, but in human terms, despicable to Rutledge's already battered mind.

After days of endless fighting that had killed thousands of good men for mere inches of ground and did nothing to bring the war nearer its inevitable end, this one death had seemed insupportable. A decision made at HQ, a decision that appeared sound and workable to officers far from the fighting, officers who didn't have to look exhausted men in the face and ask them to climb over the top one more time and die to satisfy a strategy that was broken before it had even begun, had resulted in a bloodbath that was incomprehensible. Hamish MacLeod had simply given that bloodbath a personal face.

Dr. Fleming had explained it best-though it was no comfort to Rutledge to hear it: "You couldn't accept that one man's death. And so you refused to let him die. He's every young soldier you tried to keep alive and failed. He's your expression of guilt for that failure, and he will be in your head as long as that guilt lasts. Or until you die and take Hamish MacLeod with you to the grave."