Shot at Dawn

by John Wilson

  “Your uniform’s torn,” I went on. “Did a shell land near you? Are you wounded?”

  He let his breath out and looked at me. “A shell. Yes, that’s what happened.” He looked down at his shaking left hand as if it belonged to someone else. “Just a few scratches. I’ll be all right in a little while.”

  I sat with Ken in the bottom of our shell hole and talked about our childhood in the Nicola Valley while Bob kept lookout. Whenever a shell exploded nearby, Ken would jump and look around wildly, but he gradually calmed and the shaking lessened.

  Eventually he got up. “I have to go and see to the Company,” he said. “We need to make sure this line is consolidated and that we’re in contact with the units on either side.” Talking about military necessities seemed to calm him even more. “Thank you, Allan,” he said as he slipped over the edge of the shell hole.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon busily digging, and by nightfall we occupied a more or less continuous line. There was a counter attack at dawn the next day, but with the help of our artillery, we easily repulsed it. On November 10 some of the 1st Division attacked to the north of us, but made no progress. Four days later we were relieved and sent back down to the Front near Vimy to wait out the winter.

  I saw little of Ken those days and wondered if he was avoiding me, embarrassed by his breakdown. The times I did see him, he appeared to be functioning normally and it was only because I knew him so well that I could spot the lack of his old humorous optimism, and that occasional twitch of the left hand that he cleverly turned into a gesture. I worried about him, but there seemed little I could do, so I just got on with life.

  Chapter 7

  Waiting

  Near Vimy, Winter 1917–18

  We spent the winter digging, carrying, waiting and being bored. The only entertainment was burning lice out of the seams of our clothes over a candle flame, and hunting rats the size of cats. Our casualties were replaced by kids recently out from home and training with the 5th Division in England. We watched them settle into the endless repetition of a few days in the front line, a few in reserve and a few in rest. Bob and I and the others marvelled at how naïve the newcomers were and how stupid they seemed, not knowing things that were second nature to us old hands.

  Sergeant MacTaggart rejoined us from his stay in hospital in mid-December, with stories about the church bells being rung in England after the tanks had broken through the German lines at Cambrai in November. He said a lot of people had thought the war was as good as over, but the Germans counter attacked and all the gains of the first few days had to be given up. We laughed when we heard how optimistic people in England were. We were still waiting for that black flare at midnight.

  About the time MacTaggart returned, it was announced that Bob had been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for taking out the machine-gun nest outside Passchendaele. I was excited; the DCM was almost as high an honour as the Victoria Cross, but Bob passed it off lightly.

  “They gave me a medal,” he said, grinning, when the rest of the platoon congratulated him, “simply because you lot were too lazy to do your jobs properly. Personally, I’d rather have an increase in pay, a clean uniform without any lice in it and two weeks in Paris.”

  After Passchendaele, Ken was away on a lot of courses — communications, tactics and so on — so I didn’t see much of him. When I did, I watched him closely, searching for signs of a repeat of the breakdown in the shell hole. I made no attempt to talk to him. We had grown apart.

  I had spent most of my life trying to imitate Ken. He was the reason I was in the war at all. To see him weeping and shaking uncontrollably in the shell hole had been horrifying. I felt betrayed that he had turned out to be a coward. He was nothing like the brave soldiers I had read about in all my adventure books — he didn’t deserve to be an officer in the Canadian army.

  I suppose I knew, deep down, that it wasn’t that simple, that soldiers weren’t either brave and cheerful like Bob or snivelling cowards like Ken, but back then I wasn’t prepared to make any allowances. I wanted life to be simple.

  In my letters home, life was simple. I always worked hard at making the letters cheerful and full of amusing little stories about what the men in my platoon were getting up to.

  I remember writing a long letter about our Christmas dinner when we were at rest behind the lines and our meal was a large goose that Neil Page, a lad from Vancouver with a knack for “finding” useful things, had somehow acquired from a French farmhouse. On Christmas Eve, Neil had shown up at our billet with the goose in a huge sack slung over his shoulder.

  “Look what I’ve got, boys,” he said proudly as he opened the neck of the sack and upended it.

  The goose fell out and, almost the instant it hit the ground, exploded with an ear-splitting series of honks and took off across country. Led by Bob, about twenty men did a very passable impression of the Keystone Cops as they collided with each other in their haste to catch it while Neil stood stupidly repeating, “But I wrung its neck.”

  The goose was eventually recaptured and its neck properly wrung. It made a wonderful meal and we had the added bonus of being able to tease Neil for his incompetence.

  I wrote home about this scene at great length, but never mentioned that, the week after New Year’s, Neil had had his brains smeared over the trench wall by a sniper. I was doing in my letters home exactly what Ken had done in his letters to me. It is simply not possible to describe Hell to those who have not been there.

  Oddly, I didn’t derive much pleasure from the letters I received from home. It was good to hear that Mom and Dad were fine and that the farm was doing well, but their talk of how the weather was affecting the crops or of Dad’s trip to Kamloops to look at buying a new tractor was from a different world. It all seemed so pointless and unimportant. I knew it would never be possible to make people understand my world, either its horrors or its black humour, but I was beginning to wonder if it would ever again be possible for me to understand the world that normal people lived in.

  On top of that, my nightmares got worse as winter progressed. Mostly they were made up of visions from my experiences in war — the bloody Red Cap’s face at Etaples, the rotting German body from the trench wall, or Lofty with half his head blown away.

  New scenes — a man with his face torn off by a piece of shrapnel and another who had his leg blown off and who, completely conscious and rational, bled slowly to death on the floor of our trench as we watched helplessly — added themselves to my nighttime imaginings.

  At first I discounted my dreams as simple stress, but as the cold, rainy winter dragged on they became more vivid and frequent. Oddly, they were worse when we were at rest and safe, probably because I had more time to dwell on things. I found myself fearful of going to sleep, but that didn’t help, since the less I slept the more I dreamed when exhaustion finally did overcome me.

  I told no one about my dreams, not even Bob, but as spring approached and they became more frequent, I noticed that I would occasionally twitch for no reason or jump at the least sound. I was also becoming short-tempered.

  Bob and another prairie boy called Chris were the comedians of our platoon, always fooling around and springing practical jokes on people. Once they found Sergeant MacTaggart asleep in a barn. They propped empty wine bottles all round him and made him look as if he had fallen asleep drunk.

  Another time they developed a list of “soldiers’ superstitions,” some of which were:

  It is unlucky for 13 men to sit down for a meal when rations have only been issued for 7.

  It is bad luck (for your mate) if you drop your rifle on his foot.

  It is bad luck (for you) if you drop your rifle on the sergeant’s foot.

  It is bad luck to be called to hear a lecture on the glorious history of the Regiment. It means that there is a battle coming.

  It is unlucky to visit the latrines during a barrage.

  It is unlucky to take a stroll in daylight in no man�
�s land when enemy snipers are awake.

  The list became very popular with the Company and it seemed every soldier had his favourite to add.

  One cold and rainy day, after I had woken up from an especially bad dream and was feeling unusually miserable, Bob and Chris came up to me as I was struggling to heat up some water for tea.

  “Ah, tea,” Bob said. “I’ll have a mug of that.”

  I wanted nothing more than to be left alone, so I simply grunted.

  “He’s happy this morning,” Chris added. “The funk-hole in the Savoy Hotel not to your liking?”

  I really wasn’t in the mood for mindless banter, so I ignored them both, but they sat down beside me on the fire-step and kept talking.

  “I heard a new superstition from the fellows who brought up the rolls of barbed wire last night,” Bob said. “Best yet, I reckon. Apparently, it’s very bad luck to be killed on a Friday.”

  Bob chuckled away to himself, but I had had enough. None of this war had turned out as I had expected. The rats, the lice, the filth, the bad food — when there was food at all— the utter boredom of the same routine day after day and, on top of it all, Ken was a coward. Everything seemed much more complicated and frightening than I felt I could handle and I couldn’t even escape into sleep. I suddenly felt completely overwhelmed by things I couldn’t control.

  I turned on Bob and Chris. “Go to hell! Both of you,” I hissed, loudly enough for a couple of soldiers along the trench to look up in surprise. “I’m sick of your stupid superstitions and stupid attitude. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  Bob winced as if I had hit him. Chris took a step back and put his hands up in supplication. “All right, mate,” he said. “I’m gone,” and he turned and stalked off down the trench.

  Bob stayed and stared at me. He had the sense not to try and talk to me in the mood I was in, and I had almost calmed enough to apologize when he too turned on his heel and left me to my misery and my lukewarm tea.

  Chris usually avoided me after that, but I apologized later to Bob. He said it was okay, just as he had done the other times I had blown up for no apparent reason. He even tried to talk to me about it, but I brushed him off.

  I wanted to talk to Ken. He was the only person I had ever spoken to about my feelings, but he was a coward, so I just continued in my loneliness, hoping things would get better. Then, in early March, everything changed.

  Over the previous few weeks, there had been a lot of talk about the Germans launching a big offensive to try to end the war before the American army got too strong. Certainly they had a lot of extra troops now that Russia wasn’t fighting any more, and they would use those troops somewhere. The pessimists who had talked about the war going on forever now began to talk about the war ending this year — with the Germans victorious. Most of us didn’t believe that, but there was an uncertainty in the air.

  In March Ken returned from a briefing at headquarters and announced that our Company was to move south of Arras, away from the rest of the Canadian Corps, to spend a few days on the British 3rd Army Front to learn the new techniques that were being used for defence. The idea was that, over the spring, selected units would see the new methods for themselves and then return to teach them to the rest. However, before we left we had one last task to perform.

  Ken looked very nervous as he announced that he had been ordered to lead a raid across no man’s land that night. Apparently there was a lot of activity going on behind the German lines opposite us — troop and gun movements — and we had to capture a soldier for interrogation to see if this had anything to do with the coming attack.

  Around midnight the section congregated in the trench. Our faces were blackened and we carried the minimum of equipment. Many men even left their rifles behind, preferring a selection of clubs and knives, which would be much more use if we got into a fight in the close confines of the enemy trenches. Even before we climbed out of our trench, I could see that Ken was in trouble. His hands were shaking violently and he had a nervous tic beneath his left eye. Sergeant Mac Taggart spotted it too, and calmly took charge.

  “With yer permission, sir?” he asked Ken. Ken nodded. “We’ll make this quick and easy. Over there, grab some lonely sentry in a sap dreaming of being home in Berlin, and get back over here. No heroics.” He glanced at Bob, who smiled. “Just keep low and follow the captain and me. If you hear a flare going up, drop. And freeze. It’s movement the sentry’ll see.” He saluted Ken and added, “The men’re ready, sir.”

  It looked as if it was a great effort for Ken to speak, but he managed a halting, “Very good, Sergeant. Thank you. Follow me.”

  We climbed the ladders and threaded our way along the marked paths through our wire. It was a rare, clear night, but the moon was new and the darkness almost total. We had to concentrate to keep close to the slightly darker shapes of our companions. We moved so slowly it took almost an hour to cross the 250 yards of no man’s land.

  Eventually, responding to touch signals we had learned ahead of time, we all stopped and lay still, listening. I could hear Ken breathing hard and rapidly beside me and hoped it didn’t sound as loud to a German sentry. Other sounds came from farther away, the metallic rattle of a mess tin against a rifle barrel, a cough, a curse in German. I knew the plan was for MacTaggart, Bob and a few other men to drop into a German sap, knock out the sentry and then haul him back to our lines. The rest of us were there to help if things went wrong, so all we could do at this point was wait and keep quiet.

  I lost all sense of time. My shoulders began to ache with the tension and my eyes stung as I strained to see through the darkness. I felt Ken move beside me and heard a whisper in my ear. “I think we’re discovered,” he said. “We should pull back.”

  Ken was speaking very quietly. I could feel his breath on my ear, but it almost sounded like he was screaming.

  “Shhh,” I whispered back. “We have to wait till they bring back the prisoner.”

  “They should have one by now,” Ken said. Even in a whisper, I could hear the quaver in his voice. “Something’s gone wrong.”

  I didn’t want to get into an argument with Ken and was worried that he might do something stupid. I was debating what to do when I heard a brief scuffle to my right. There was a distinct thump followed by a soft grunt.

  “What’s that?” Ken asked nervously.

  “I think that’s our prisoner,” I replied. A moment later I saw a group of darker shapes coming towards us. A low whistle told me it was Bob and the others returning. They were dragging something. When they reached us we rose and headed back to our trenches.

  We were less concerned about being discovered on the way back and moved much faster. The main danger was that the missing sentry would be noticed. I judged that we were about halfway back when I heard a shout followed by the low hiss of a flare. I flopped down and an instant later a brilliant white light, like a photographer’s flash, turned everything into harsh daylight or impenetrable shadow.

  My head was turned to the left and I could see the lumps of other bodies around me. Mac Taggart, Bob and two other men were holding down a figure in a field-grey uniform. Ken was some way back, more in a crouch than lying flat. Then I saw Chris. He was standing beside Ken, almost upright in mid-step, like a perfectly carved statue. “Don’t move,” I heard MacTaggart say. There was no need for silence now. “When the flare dies, head for our trench. The boys there’ll give us covering fire.”

  The flare was already fading when a machine gun began to clatter. It was probably just spraying randomly, but several bullets caught Chris across the chest. He slumped to the ground and I heard Ken say, “My God.”

  Darkness, utterly black after the flare, descended as MacTaggart shouted orders. “Whoever’s closest, grab that wounded man. Let’s move before the next flare goes up.”

  I rose and began moving but I hadn’t taken more than five or six steps before I heard the telltale hiss. I flopped down.

  The scene in the
harsh glare of the flare was similar to before, except that everyone had moved forward. Everyone except Ken. He was frozen in the same crouching position, in the same place as before, Chris’s body beside him.

  Our raid had woken a hornet’s next of activity and the firing was much heavier than before. Rifles cracked and machine guns rattled on both sides all along the Front and were joined by the occasional crump of exploding mortar shells.

  I was debating whether to go back and get Ken when I saw him slowly stand up and look around as if waking from a dream.

  “Get down!” I yelled.

  Ken looked over at me and began a slow walk forward. He had covered about half the distance to my position when a bullet caught him, spinning him round so that he fell on his back. Without thinking, I bolted up, ran the few steps to Ken and threw myself down beside him.

  “I’ve done enough,” Ken said in a faraway voice. “It’s time to go home.”

  “Yes it is,” I agreed, not knowing what else to say. “I’ll get you home.”

  As the flare faded, I shoved my hands under Ken’s armpits and began hauling. It was slow going and I had to flop down every time another flare went up, but eventually we made it through the wire and tumbled into our own trench.

  Ken screamed in pain as he landed on his face on the duckboards of the trench floor, but before I could respond, MacTaggart was beside us. “Get a stretcher,” he shouted, as he cut open Ken’s bloodstained uniform.

  There was a neat, round hole in Ken’s back, on the right side. Ragged pieces of his uniform had been pushed into the hole, but there was surprisingly little blood. MacTaggart placed a field dressing on it.

  “Hold that in place while we turn him over,” he ordered me. “And keep it tight on there.”

  I pressed the dressing to the wound and shifted my own position as MacTaggart rolled Ken over. There was a much larger, more irregular hole in Ken’s front and it was bleeding freely. Within the mess of ragged flesh and pieces of material, I could see jagged fragments of white bone sticking out. MacTaggart wrapped bandages around Ken’s body to hold the dressings in place, but in moments they were soaked in blood.