The Colonel’s Drawer, the Taisa’s Wound: How to Write Military Characters in Detective Fiction

A Fusion Writing Guide for Military Characters in Detective Fiction

A writer sits at a desk, wanting to write a retired colonel. The first image that comes to mind is a country estate, rose bushes, sherry, a tweed jacket, a copy of The Times, and a hound asleep at his feet. Then the writer gets stuck. The image is too smooth. It fits into any story. The reader takes one look and already knows what comes next: either he is the murderer, or the victim, or the eccentric old man who supplies the crucial clue.

The problem is not the image. The problem is that this colonel has no history.

He might have come from India, Afghanistan, or some colony, but the writer does not know. The writer only knows that the word “colonel” is useful. It carries status, a past, firearms knowledge, authority, and no need to actually work. But useful does not mean writable. A colonel without a specific history is a universal drawer. You can put anything into it, but nothing remains.

To solve this, go back to the origin of the word.

1. The Colonel Is Not a Rank, but a Military Contractor

In early modern Europe, armies were not as professionalized as they later became. When a king went to war, standing armies were insufficient. Local nobles, gentry, and wealthy merchants raised troops themselves, bought equipment, paid wages, and armed a “regiment” to hand over to the king. The person who paid for it owned the regiment and was called the colonel. At this point, the colonel was essentially a military contractor, not a professional soldier. He did not need to charge into battle, or even understand tactics. He paid, organized, and maintained. Subordinate officers commissioned by him commanded the battalions in the field.

This system was especially typical in Britain. The purchase system, proprietary regiments, and localism gave the title “colonel” a strong flavor of honor, locality, and second-line status from the beginning. Later, as armies professionalized, the purchase system was abolished in 1871, and colonel became a formal rank. But that social aura never disappeared. In the British Army, Colonel of the Regiment was often an honorary position. The actual battalion commander was a Lieutenant Colonel. In the United States, a Colonel might command a brigade and was more professional, but “colonel” still carried respect.

This gives novelists enormous room. A colonel who is too young? He may have purchased the rank, or received a battlefield promotion. A colonel who is too old? He may be an honorary promotion, or from the militia system. A colonel back from India, Afghanistan, or Africa? A veteran of colonial wars. A colonel who stays at home? A country squire, militia chief, club member. A colonel always traveling? Intelligence, a part-time officer, a retiree who cannot sit still. A colonel who never saw battle? Completely normal. Colonels might well stay in the rear. One identity explains almost everything.

2. Six Functions of the Colonel in Detective Fiction

Classic detective fiction loves country estates, old families, clubs, churches, dinner parties, and wills. These settings need someone with status to hold the social stage. The colonel fits. He may own an estate, serve as a justice of the peace, sit on a club board, or be a churchwarden. He does not work, yet has income. He is not necessarily noble, yet can stand on equal footing with nobles. Agatha Christie’s Colonel Bantry is the typical country gentleman. Colonel Race is another type: intelligence officer, imperial background, man of action. Hastings is only a captain, but he is also a veteran, which makes him a suitable assistant.

The colonel also brings a built-in past. A retired colonel need only say, “When I was in India,” and the reader automatically fills in colonies, war, betrayal, secrets, exotic romance, and dead comrades. His past does not need to be fully written. Only the tip of the iceberg is enough to create suspense. He may hide the truth of a battle, have a dead comrade, receive a letter from Africa, or possess a medal he should never have had.

Detective fiction often needs someone who can shoot, read traces, fight hand-to-hand, and recognize military equipment. The colonel naturally has these abilities. He does not need to explain why he knows guns, why he stays calm, or why he is not panicked by a corpse. His military training is the best background explanation.

The colonel is often a local authority. The police respect him, servants do not question him, and neighbors ask him for help. But precisely because of this, he can also be the most suspicious person. If a respected colonel suddenly lies, the contrast is stronger than if an ordinary person lies. He can be a red herring, an accomplice, or even the murderer.

After retirement, a colonel usually has a pension, estate, or investments. He does not have to clock in every day. He can travel, investigate, visit old friends, and appear wherever he is needed. Need an assistant for the detective? The colonel can do it. Need a client? The colonel can do it. Need a suspect? The colonel can do that too.

Finally, the colonel is usually no longer young. He may have lost comrades, failed at marriage, become estranged from his children, or been left behind by the times. His sense of honor and duty can conflict with the utilitarianism and hypocrisy of modern society. This kind of character easily produces tragedy.

3. Why Not Major, Lieutenant Colonel, or General?

A major is too young, too front-line, often still serving, with no time to wander. His social status is not high enough. A lieutenant colonel is neither high nor low. In the British and American systems, he is often a battalion commander and extremely busy. A retired lieutenant colonel exists, but carries less weight than a colonel. A captain is too junior, too poor, too young. Suitable as an assistant, not as an authority. A general is too prominent, too political, too close to the state. Once you write a general, the story tends to become a military conspiracy, a coup, or an international crisis, not a country murder.

The colonel is just right. Status, past, freedom, authority. Without exploding the story. This is where the colonel works best.

4. Japan’s Taisa: Professionalism, Historical Weight, Postwar Trauma

Now turn to Japan.

Taisa is the rank in the old Imperial Japanese Army and Navy equivalent to colonel. In the old Japanese military, a taisa could command a regiment or serve as a division chief of staff. After the war, the Self-Defense Forces switched to 1-sa, 2-sa, 3-sa, with 1-sa corresponding to colonel. But in detective fiction, if a taisa appears, it usually refers to the old Imperial military, not the modern Self-Defense Forces.

Why did Japanese detective fiction not turn the taisa into a universal role like the Anglo-American colonel?

First, the historical context is too heavy. The old Japanese taisa is tightly bound to militarism, invasive war, colonies, Unit 731, the Nanjing Massacre, and other atrocities. A taisa character cannot easily drink tea, grow roses, and attend dinner parties like an English country colonel. The moment he appears, the reader thinks of war, guilt, demobilization, veterans’ associations, and secret documents.

Second, old Japanese officers were highly professional. They were not gentry who purchased rank. They were elites selected through the Army Academy and the Army War College. Taisa was a high professional military rank, not an honorary title. Therefore, it lacks the Anglo-American colonel’s flexibility of “diverse origins, explainable at will.”

Third, postwar Japanese society has a complex silence about the old military. In much detective fiction, when an old soldier appears as a taisa, he often carries trauma, concealment, revenge, dead comrades, and secret organizations. In social detective fiction, old soldiers may be involved in the postwar black market, political corruption, or corporate conspiracies. In honkaku detective fiction, the taisa may be a strange old man in a closed village, guarding a war secret.

So the taisa in Japanese detective fiction is more a historical symbol than a universal social identity. It suits war shadows, postwar trauma, and organizational secrets. It does not suit the “respectable country gentleman.”

5. Fusion Writing: The Colonel’s Skeleton, the Taisa’s Flesh and Blood

If you want to write a military character, whatever the background, you can use the colonel framework to build the skeleton and the taisa texture to fill in flesh and blood.

What does the colonel framework provide? Social status, a past, firearms skills, authority and suspicion, a free identity, emotional depth. These are structural. They are the event anchors the story needs.

What does the taisa constraint enforce? Language must not be empty, clichéd, or explained by the narrator. Every past must be transmitted through objects: a military sword, medals, a regimental photograph, an unsent letter, a veterans’ roster, a 1945 map. Professional habits must run throughout. The taisa was not purchased. He was examined in. His habits, tone, obedience to and questioning of orders all bear the traces of the Army Academy or the Army War College. Postwar trauma cannot be written as “he has nightmares.” It must be written as what time he wakes, what he puts under his pillow, which day he refuses to go out.

How exactly?

Do not write “he is a local squire.” Write: his signature is first on the churchwarden list; the club waiter looks at his glass first when pouring; his dog is named “Major.”

Do not write “he was in the war.” Write: the little finger of his left hand is missing, and he never explains; he stops chewing when he hears a certain place name; there is a photograph in his study, and the third man’s face has been scratched with a fingernail.

Do not write “he expertly checks a pistol.” Write: he takes the gun, drops the magazine, racks the slide. His eyes are not on the muzzle but out the window. Then he puts the gun on the table, muzzle toward the wall.

Do not write “his colonel title was purchased.” Write: someone calls him “Colonel,” and he answers, “Honorary.” The other person laughs once. He immediately changes the subject and asks about the weather.

Do not write “people both respect and suspect him.” Write: the police salute him first when they enter, but the first name on the search warrant is his.

Do not write “he ruined the relationship because of his need for control.” Write: she packs her bags. He stands at the door, does not stop her, and only says, “The keys are on the table.” After she leaves, he puts her cup back in its place, then wipes the table three times.

Do not write “he finally learned to let go.” Write: he opens the locked drawer himself, puts the scratched photograph on the table, and tells the detective, “The third man is me.”

6. A Writable Character

Edgar Beaufort, 65, self-styled colonel, served in the Malayan Emergency, retired to the countryside to keep bees. Churchwarden, club member. Locked in his study are a medal he should never have had and a 1945 regimental photograph. But it is a Japanese photograph.

He never lets anyone into the study. But the new female detective says she is cold. He pauses for three seconds, opens the study door, and lets her sit inside. He stands in the doorway.

Someone asks how he got his colonel’s title. “Honorary,” he says. “Which war?” the other asks. “The weather’s nice,” he answers. Then he goes to feed the bees.

The female detective finds an old map. He puts his hand on it and says, “That’s useless.” His hand is trembling. Then the phone rings. He picks up and says only one word: “No.” He hangs up. When he returns, the map is gone.

The female detective asks about the photograph. He stands, pushes the chair back under the desk, and says, “You should go.” At the door, he adds, “Don’t come tomorrow.”

The next day, he eats breakfast alone. The opposite plate is still there. He turns it over, face down. Then he wipes the table three times.

On the third day, he opens the locked drawer and puts the medal and the photograph on the table. When the female detective enters, he says, “The third man is me. 1945, Burma. He was my interpreter. I signed the order. He died.”

No “he felt.” No “he realized.” No “truly,” “indeed,” or “it must be said.” No uplift. Only the plate, the table, the beehives, the medal, the photograph.

7. Taisa Variants

If you are writing a Japanese background, you can design it like this:

Taisa Todo, 70, a former regimental commander in the old Imperial Japanese Army, runs a used bookstore in the countryside after the war. He never mentions the war, but every August 15 he closes the shop. One day, a young man claiming to be his former subordinate appears. The next day, the young man is dead in the alley behind the bookstore. Taisa Todo says, “I don’t know him.” But the police find a 1945 regimental photograph in his drawer.

Again, do not explain his past. Use objects: the layout of the used bookstore, the August 15 closure, the regimental photograph, a military sword without a scabbard, a diary with pages torn out.

8. Ending

The colonel is a drawer. You can put class, war, honor, secrets, firearms, squires, colonies, aging, love, and betrayal into it. It is respectable, flexible, and full of possibility. What the writer must do is choose a specific drawer and put a specific person inside.

The taisa is a wound. It carries the historical weight of the old Japanese military, along with the silence and guilt of postwar society. It is not suited to easy tea drinking, but it is suited to war shadows, organizational secrets, and personal redemption.

So when you want to write a military character, first ask yourself: do I need a universal drawer, or a historical wound? Then choose your rank, give him a name, a past, a secret, and a murder.

The colonel will stand by the roses of a country estate, sherry in hand, smiling at you. The taisa will sit in the shadow of a used bookstore, silently looking at a 1945 photograph.

And the truth will be hidden in the past they refuse to mention.