Murder At Zero Hour

by Paul Westwood

  *

  After we worked our way past the artillery and back into our lines, we spent a good hour asking about if anyone had seen Corporal Childs. None of his cronies knew where he was, so we went back to HQ. We found it nearly deserted with only Lyons left behind. He was leaning back on a chair with his head resting on the wall of the dugout. Looking calm, a half-finished cigarette dangled loosely from his fingertips. A bottle of whiskey was at his elbow, and the glass next to it was half empty. A splash of liquor was pooled on the table with ashes floating on top.

  His eyes were still clear when he looked up at us. “Have a good hunt?” he asked.

  The thump of our artillery was constant, and even inside the dugout we had to raise our voice to be heard.

  “We ran into a spot of trouble,” I said. “Do you happen to know where Corporal Childs is?”

  “Childs? On Wodenhill’s orders, he was sent up to the regimental HQ just after you left. I delivered the message to him myself.”

  “That bastard took a few shots at us up on that hill,” I said acidly. I filled him in on what happened during our expedition. He barely raised an eyebrow during the entire telling.

  “You have to be joking,” Lyons finally said.

  “It’s no joke, sir,” Owens added his bit to the conversation.

  “It makes sense if you think about it,” I said defensively. “Childs must have killed Captain Meadowes and suspected me of knowing about it. That explains why he was following me lately. He took the chance today of taking a couple of potshots at me.”

  “Plenty of soldiers hate their officers, but I can’t see Childs killing old Meadowes. For one thing, he is a complete coward.”

  “I know what I saw with my own eyes,” I replied. “I saw the damn corporal sneak back into camp after he lost us in the woods.”

  Lyons lazily wagged his finger at me and said, “I saw Childs leave for the headquarters myself. He hooked a ride on an ammo lorry and looked none too pleased about it. You know how much he hates to work. Tell me Owens, did you see him out there?”

  “No, sir. I did not get a chance since I do not have field glasses.”

  “There you go, Grant. If you don’t believe me, then we can go and give Wodenhill a call. If Childs did sneak back to get you, then there is no way he could have gotten back there yet.”

  “Go ahead,” I said defiantly. I could feel the anger rising in me and waited impatiently to be vindicated.

  Lyons nodded and reached over to grab the phone. After a flurry of connections he was eventually calling the right line. “Good afternoon, you bastard,” he said. He cupped his hand on the receiver and said to me, “Wodenhill.” Lyons had the bad habit of nodding when on the phone as if the person on the other line could see him. “I’m calling about Corporal Childs. Is he still there? What do I mean? Well, has he been there all day? I see. Are you sure? All day? Thank you.” He put the phone down.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Captain Wodenhill says that Childs has been there all day helping him move some records into storage.”

  “That bastard,” I said and stormed out of the dugout before my friend could reply. Owens trailed behind but didn’t say a word.

  I never saw Childs the rest of that week. I suspected that Captain Wodenhill was keeping him away from me. I didn't really know why that would be, but I could only think of one thing - Wodenhill had been in the plot to kill Meadowes. It must be related to those papers and book I had found. Childs was stealing from the regiment and making a tidy profit for himself. I had no proof since the materials I found were now in the captain’s possession. He must be working along with Childs. What other reason could there be? The only way of seeing justice done was to see Colonel Smythe and explain my suspicions.

  Later that night at our billet, I tried this theory out with Lyons. He called my suggestions absurd and suggested I concentrate on staying alive. After a brief argument, I gave up trying to convince him and instead waited for the moment when Colonel Smythe visited our lines. He often came to our HQ, though he tended to stay away from the very front line. For some reason, that visit never seemed to happen. The colonel must have been too busy with the planning of the upcoming offensive.

  Instead of taking care of Childs, I was stuck dealing with my men’s trench foot, drunkenness, and despair. The soldiers were getting nervous of thinking of going over the top, and even with our heavy bombardment of the enemy, they still expected the worst on the day of the big push. Not that I could blame them. Even with all the propaganda concerning the cowardly ways of the Germans, they were truly proficient fighters. We also knew they were dug in deep since they had a long time to fortify their positions.

  With Bryant, we went over the plans given to us by the brass. We even found time outside the village field to practice our movements against some mock German trenches. The staff officers decided we needed to carry everything under the sun with us. There was trenching tools, wire cutters, signal flares, and there was even a designated messenger-pigeon carrier. I think we would have preferred to eat the poor things instead of carrying them along.

  While all this was going on, I noticed that Carter was acting very strangely. It was almost as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Perhaps it was fear, for he could not make eye contact with me. I wanted to discuss his presence on the day I was shot at, but he would always mutter something incomprehensible and would skulk off at the first opportunity.

  The unending thunder of the artillery certainly didn’t help anyone. It was constant nuisance, and during one afternoon we didn’t even recognize the sound of true thunder until it began raining heavily. Every day I would look over the parapet with my periscope and see the damage inflicted by the shells. The enemy trenches were caved-in with torn sandbags and fragmented wooden supports. Not a single movement of life could be seen. I could only imagine what if felt like to be them, lying in their bunkers and hearing the constant, unending rumble of the ground being torn up above. It would be enough to drive any man to insanity. But still all that explosive force had done little to their barbed wire. It was still grouped heavily in front of the German works, and only the heaviest of shells could shred it. The wire still looked like a formidable obstacle. I remembered how Prentice was stymied by it. It would take several minutes to chew through the wire with a cutter and by then, we would be cut down by machine guns. I just hoped that the last bombardment would be large enough to shred the wire, so we could safely pass through.

  Deveaux was now crowded with men, tents and wagons of supplies. Soldiers from other divisions had been moved up and were encamped behind our lines. They were new army recruits, and I confess we had little faith in their performance. This was the first time many of them were to see combat. Our veterans grumbled at the idea of a bunch of trigger-happy untested soldiers behind them. But still, if we took the first enemy line then all we had to do was wait for these fools to do their job. It was of little consolation.

  The funny thing is, the more you dread an upcoming event, the faster time seems to pass. I kept my boys busy as possible with drilling and night trench construction, but the upcoming battle weighed heavily on all our minds. Before I knew it, it was the day before the big push, and by that time I was a bundle of raw nerves. That evening, we all had a break before the big day. I went off and found Lyons at our billet. He was drinking heavily with an empty bottle at his feet and a half-full one at his elbow.

  “Mind if I join you?” I asked.

  He gazed at me sourly and shoved the bottle towards me. “Suit yourself,” he replied with a slur to his voice.

  We hadn’t been on the friendliest of terms since our last argument, but at this point I was looking for any companionship I could find. I had some real fears about leading the men across No Man’s Land and didn’t know fully what to expect. I took a real hard swig from the bottle and made a face. It was some nasty rotgu
t that Lyons had dug up.

  “Can’t keep your liquor down?” he sneered at me. Then he broke into a frown and said, “I’m sorry, Grant. I’m just a bit keyed-up right now.”

  “So am I,” I admitted.

  “Feeling a bit nervous about tomorrow?” he asked. He pulled the bottle back and took another nip.

  “Are you?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Just blow your whistle, climb the ladder, and you’ll be over on the Boche side before you know it.”

  “I’ve been looking at their wire across the way, and all that artillery has hardly put a dent into it. I don’t want to be stuck on the wrong side and try to cut through the stuff.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “But still, we have to follow our orders - for King and Country.” He saluted in a comical fashion, missing the side of his head.

  “It’s not my King or my Country,” I reminded him.

  “That’s true,” he said and sampled another bit of whiskey. “I bet you wished you had stayed over in America where it is safe and sound. No Zeppelin raids, no women working the explosive factories with their skin yellowing from the nitrate, no men dying by the hundreds from this merciless, butcher shop of a war – you know you’re a damn fool for coming over here. You know it, and I can see it in your eyes.”

  I stared at my friend grimly and said, “But I’m here anyways. Not much I can do about it right now, is there?”

  “I suppose not. I’ll tell you a story about a major I heard about who tried to escape all of this shit. After the dustup at Marne, he got a letter from his brother. Turns out the major’s wife had taken up with another man and was living it up on the money that he had left behind. This major was rather well-heeled, so the thought of his money being spent like that was too much for him. He went and led a patrol out to No Man’s Land. When his men returned, they said their officer had been badly wounded. He told his men to return back to the trench. One week later, that same major was found dressed as a woman trying to board a boat to get back across the Channel. He told the police that he was going to shoot his own wife.” He smiled at his own story.

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “They wanted to put him against the wall and shoot the poor bugger, but instead they cashiered him out of the service. It just shows that having the right connections is too important in this damned world. Mind you, if an enlisted man tried to pull the same stunt, they would have shot him the very same day.”

  I nodded sagely. You heard so many stories out here, and you never knew what was true or not. Rumors were the order of the day in the trenches. One story would pass from soldier to soldier and grow distorted with each telling. “Lyons, I know you’ve been in this game longer than others. What happened when you made your first jump over the bags?”

  A dark shadow passed over his face. His hands reached clumsily for the pack of cigarettes shoved in his breast pocket. He lit one and blew the smoke high into the ceiling above. “It was a tough business,” he said softly. “It was during the beginning of the war. The armies were still marching and fighting each other like the olden days. We were trying to find the best tactical positions and all that. At the time we really didn’t have trenches like this – we were just using them temporary-like with no sandbags. They were just quickly dug holes in the ground without a sign of barbed wire. But it didn’t matter anyways since Fritz had setup his machine guns to stop us. I blew my whistle, and over we went. Their machine guns begin sweeping across us, tap-tap-tap. I motioned everyone to fall to the ground and find cover. When I motioned them to move forward again, there wasn’t a single man in my platoon who wasn’t dead or wounded.” He took another swig from the bottle and stared at the ash at the end of his cigarette.

  “Tough business,” I said softly. I felt sick inside with the thought that that could happen to me.

  “Well, never mind that,” he said. “We had to fall back of course. I was lucky enough to escape without a scratch. It was hell at night, hearing the moan of the wounded. The Boche let us go out and remove our casualties. They didn’t even fire a shot at us. Of course things were different back then.”

  “Different?” I asked.

  “Oh, I imagine you’ve heard the stories about the Christmas truce and whatnot. The war seemed more humane in the early days – we weren’t out to murder each other, but just trying to end a dispute. Things have changed plenty since then. We’ve all gotten a bit more bloodthirsty, and now a human life isn’t worth a damn. I think the killing will go on until there’s no one left on this cursed planet of ours.” He stared at the whiskey bottle. He picked it up and put it down again without taking a drink. His face was now flushed red with anger. He said, “To finish my story, the company I was in was so torn up that it was disbanded. They didn’t know what to do with me so I was reassigned to Colonel Smythe here. It’s been a right old place for me to wait this damned war out. I just wish it would end.”

  I lit a cigarette for myself and flicked the ashes to the floor. This wasn’t the kind of talk I was expecting from a fellow officer. “You’ll be in a spot of trouble if someone else hears such defeatist words,” I said.

  Lyons suddenly laughed and tilted his chair back. “Oh, don’t worry so much. I’m sure our new Captain Bryant will give us a rousing speech tomorrow morning before we make the push. It will lift the spirits of the troops, I’m sure. Too bad the blighter will be waiting in the dugout to see the outcome. Or so far behind us he'd be mistaken for a scrounger if he weren't in uniform. Perish the thought that he would take a bullet for old England.”

  This talk certainly did little to lift my own spirits. I asked, “How can you stand being here day after day? You certainly seem to have little love for your situation.”

  “What an odd question,” he remarked. “What else am I supposed to do? Can’t run away, and I’m too much of a coward to shoot myself. I’ve just decided to accept my fate and make my life on this damned world as comfortable as possible.”

  “Speaking of fate, have you noticed Carter lately?”

  “No, why?” he asked.

  “He’s been in rather a strange mood as if he is walking in a dream. I worry about him and how he will act tomorrow.”

  “I wonder,” Lyons said.

  “Wonder what?”

  “Oh, never mind,” he replied hastily. “I don’t want to speak poorly of a fellow officer.” And with those words he took the bottle and drained the remnants. With a callous wipe of his mouth, he stood up and swayed unsteadily. “I think I’ll go and get some sleep,” he said. “If I can,” he added over his shoulder as he staggered down the hall.

  I watched his back and decided it was a good time to get some rest myself. I knew I was too keyed-up to get any real sleep. I walked into my bedroom, undressed and lay on the threadbare mattress. I could hear Lyons snoring away in the next room. His breathing was deep and noisy like the village drunk.

  It was a terrible time to sleep with the knowledge that in the morning I would be leading my platoon over the top. I tried to think of Chicago, my family, and the woods I roamed in my childhood, but nothing seemed to help. The artillery still thundered away, and each rumbling charge hammered heavily into my thoughts. My head ached terribly. I rolled uncomfortably about the bed which squeaked every time I shifted my weight. It seemed like hours before I fell into a restless slumber. It seemed I had just shut my eyes for just a minute when I felt someone shaking my shoulders.

  “Come on, chap, we have some work to do,” the voice said.

  “I’m awake,” I grumbled. I opened my eyes and saw Lyons standing at my bed. He looked none the worse for wear and was even smiling a bit. He was already clean-shaven and except for the dark circles under his eyes, you would have never guessed he had drunk a fifth of whiskey to himself.

  It was still dark out. I felt miserable as if I had drunk three bottles of whiskey. I never felt so tired in my life.
It only added to the unreality of the situation I was about to face.

  “Get on up,” he said. “We have to get our men up and ready. They’ll be wanting their tot of rum soon. They will need it before this morning is through.”