Sleeping on post was a capital offence. So was being drunk on post, leaving it without orders, or abandoning a position — the Army Act carried a long list, and at the bottom of it was a firing party at dawn. In practice the threat did most of the work. More than three thousand British and Commonwealth soldiers were sentenced to death during the war, and roughly nine in ten had the sentence commuted. The rest were shot. In 2006 Parliament pardoned 306 of them. That is the law standing at this man's shoulder while he watches the wire.

W. Britain has him doing nothing, carefully. The SMLE is held across his body rather than shouldered — hands on it, not ready to fire but ready to be. Brodie helmet, 1908 webbing, entrenching tool and water bottle, and no pack, because he is not going anywhere. That is what makes him the most useful figure in a trench diorama: everyone else in a scene is doing something, and someone has to be the man who is simply there. Stand him on the fire step of a trench section, looking out at no man's land, and let the man with the tea come down the bay towards him.

W. Britain model 23074. 1/30 scale (approximately 60mm), matte-painted metal. Single standing figure on a sculpted groundwork base. Supplied in a clamshell pack.