A Hanging at Dawn

Years before Bess Crawford becomes a battlefield nurse, her family lives with the British Army on India’s North-West Frontier. The young soldier Simon Brandon becomes Bess’s protector and companion, but his own past is guarded by Major Crawford and several members of the family’s circle. Told from multiple viewpoints, the novella reconstructs the events that brought Simon into their lives and the threat represented by a hanging whose meaning has been concealed.

The story expands the colonial and regimental background of the Bess Crawford series. Military hierarchy can provide belonging to a boy with few prospects, but it also gives senior officers the power to control records and reputations. The Crawfords’ intervention creates a lifelong debt that later shapes Simon’s loyalty to Bess.