by John Wilson
I crossed the clearing feeling powerful and confident. I was in charge of my own life at last. I heard a voice order, “Don’t move,” but I ignored it. Sommerfield had no power over me now.
I had gone just a little way into the trees when the figure stepped out in front of me. “It’s a long way to Amiens,” it said.
I heard the words, but I wasn’t really listening. I recognized the face not 3 feet in front of me. “Ken?” I asked. “Is that really you?”
My first reaction was that I was in a dream and this was another ghost come to haunt me. My chest tensed so much I had trouble breathing. Pain shot across my bruised ribs. My hands started twitching and I sank to my knees.
“I saw you shot,” I managed to gasp. “You’re dead.”
“Almost,” Ken said with a smile, “and not for want of trying, although I lost a lung and a couple of ribs, so hunting mountain sheep is not an option anymore. But we’ll talk later. I think we should go back to the clearing now.”
Ken helped me up and we returned the way I had come. I was confused by his sudden appearance, but glad that I had made my decision to surrender before he had arrived.
Sommerfield was sitting morosely on a stump by the ashes of the fire. His pistol was missing from its holster but he still carried the dispatch pouch containing the travel documents beneath his left arm. The grubby bandage round his hand was stained dark with blood. A sergeant and half a dozen young armed soldiers stood around the clearing.
“Looks like the rest of the birds’ve flown, sir,’ the sergeant reported.
“Which way did the rest of the deserters go?” Ken asked.
“They’re heading northeast, towards Béthune,” I answered automatically.
“On foot?”
I nodded.
“And how much of a start do they have?”
“They left this morning, so it can’t be that long,” I said.
“Very well,” Ken said. “Sergeant, leave one man with me. Take the rest of the squad and sweep to the northeast. See how many you can pick up. Bring them back here.”
“Right you are, sir.” The sergeant delegated one man, a very young looking private, to stay, and rapidly organized the others into a widely-spaced line that set off at a brisk pace through the trees.
When we couldn’t hear them any more, Ken sat us down around the dead fire. The private sat to my left, his rifle held nervously across his knees. Ken sat to my right, on the opposite side from Sommerfield. A faint smile played on his face.
I was still in shock, but questions were beginning to flood my mind. “What happened? Were you trying to kill yourself when you stood up back there in no man’s land? If you only have one lung why aren’t you at home? What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Slow down. I’ll tell you what I can.” Ken paused for a moment before launching into his story. “Yes, I was trying to kill myself. I couldn’t see any other way out. I was a complete wreck — not sleeping, plagued by dreams, sinking deeper into black depression and spending every spare moment trying to concoct mad schemes that would get me home. Fortunately, I was still sane enough to see that they wouldn’t work, but I was trapped. The responsibility I felt for all the men in the Company weighed heavy and I simply couldn’t face watching any more of them die. The thought of the coming German attack was just too much to bear.”
“Touching,” Sommerfield remarked, frowning.
Ken flashed him a look and continued. “When I was caught by that flare on the raid, it suddenly struck me how easy it would be to simply stand up and not have to go through all the rest. So I did. I remember waking up in a hospital bed somewhere. I had just dreamed that I was dead and when I realized that I was still alive, I felt horribly disappointed. But I was lucky.”
Ken absent-mindedly rubbed the side of his chest where I had seen the bullet exit wound, before he continued. “A doctor in London realized that I had more wrong with me than a bullet through the chest. He arranged to have me transferred to Craiglockhart, a place up in Scotland where there was a Doctor Rivers who was working with shell-shocked officers. The man was a wonder. He actually understood.
“As the weeks passed, my dreams and fears grew less. By the summer, I was ready to leave Craiglockhart. I wasn’t cured — I doubt I ever will be — but I could function.”
Ken smiled. He looked more relaxed than I remembered seeing him since before he went off to war.
“Rivers wanted me discharged from the army, but I was desperate to return to France. I felt guilty that I had let my men — and you, Allan — down. We compromised. I could come back to France, but only for duty behind the front lines. They gave me the job of organizing squads of men on sweeps of the countryside to pick up deserters. We’ve had a certain amount of luck, but there aren’t many men available for this work.
“In any case, I’d heard reports of a group living in these woods and I was setting up a sweep when word arrived last night that a French woman had killed a British deserter.
“I guessed that the rest of the group would probably leave after what had happened, so we moved quickly. We began the sweep while it was still dark. We would have missed you two if you’d left with the others.”
“Lucky us,” Sommerfield muttered.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Ken ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Sommerfield replied, his right hand rising to his forehead in an insolent, mock salute.
“I was on my way to Amiens to give myself up,” I said, so quietly that Ken had to lean forward to hear me.
“I know you were,” Ken said. “I heard you tell Sommerfield that’s what you were going to do. I guess I saved you a walk.
“I could hardly believe it when I saw you in the clearing,” Ken went on. “I knew you’d been reported missing, but that could have meant you were dead, a prisoner, or a deserter. I heard it was utter chaos in those first days of the German attack. I thought being a deserter was a possibility because I had seen some symptoms in you that I recognized — the occasional twitch, the inability to sleep, the faraway look in the eyes. I knew if you were a deserter it was because you were sick, like I was. You don’t have to worry any more, Allan. I’ll get you some help.”
I felt my throat tighten. Ken, the hero of my childhood, the man who had saved my life and the one I had followed into the war, was back to help me again.
The pistol shot was deafening. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the young private cartwheel backwards as a red halo sprayed from his head. His rifle spun to the ground at my feet.
Ken reached for his holster, but Sommerfield stopped him. “I wouldn’t do that.” He was sitting calmly, pointing a pistol across the firepit at Ken. He must have had it hidden in the dispatch case.
Ken relaxed and let his hand fall back on his lap. “You won’t get away with this,” he said. “The rest of the squad will have heard the shot. They’ll be back soon.”
“True,” Sommerfield said, “but on foot. I doubt they can outrun a motorcycle. Still, you have a point. I should hurry. Allan, get the private’s rifle and come over here.”
I hesitated, confused by the speed of events and still trying to make sense of what was happening. “I — I don’t know,” I stammered.
“Look,” Sommerfield said. “I’ll forget what you said earlier. Like your friend here says, you’re sick. But don’t believe what he told you. Do you honestly think anyone will listen to him? He’s still alive because he tried to kill himself and because he’s an officer. You’re a soldier who ran away in the middle of a battle. They’ll shoot you as certainly as the sun will come up tomorrow. You’ve got one chance to get out of this mess free, and that’s to come with me now.”
I looked at Ken. He was smiling. It was a friendly, comforting expression. It was the smile I had seen after I had fallen on the sheep-hunting trip. The smile I had seen as he fashioned a makeshift splint and carried me down the mountain ahead of the snowstorm.
I looked over at Sommerfield. He was smiling as well, but it
was the smile of a predator.
“What will you do with him if I come with you?” I asked, jerking my thumb at Ken. If I could keep Sommerfield talking, there might be time for the sergeant and his men to return.
“We’ll leave him here,” Sommerfield replied. His smile broadened, but his eyes remained cold.
I knew what that smile meant. “I don’t want him hurt.”
“Of course not. It won’t hurt. Now hurry up, we need to go.” Sommerfield stood up.
I bent down and picked up the soldier’s rifle. Standing up, I slipped the safety catch off and, hoping the dead man had put a bullet in the chamber, pointed the rifle across the firepit.
Sommerfield looked puzzled. “What in blazes are you doing?”
“Like I said, I’m not coming with you,” I hissed. “You get on your cycle and go, but we’re staying here.”
“Don’t be stupid, Allan. This officer — ” Sommerfield spat the word out “ — can’t save your life. I can. The plan will work if we leave here together, but we have to leave now.”
I felt beads of sweat forming on my neck and running down under my uniform collar. The rifle barrel wavered, but then it steadied. I had made my decision — Sommerfield or Ken. All I had to do was stick with it.
“Put the pistol down,” I ordered, surprised at the firmness in my voice. “Get on your cycle and leave.”
Sommerfield wouldn’t give up. “We’re comrades, Allan,” he said, his smile returning. “We’ve both been through hell and survived. I’ve looked after you and helped you for months. Now we have a chance to get out forever. Are you going to let this stuck-up officer stand in our way? Give me the rifle and we’ll go home.”
“This officer’s my friend,” I said. “You are not. You just want someone to make your escape easier.”
Sommerfield’s smile vanished and he let out a long sigh. The pistol in his right hand began to swing towards me. It seemed to be happening in slow motion and I had time to think quite clearly: He’s going to kill me. I looked down the barrel of Sommerfield’s pistol and squeezed the trigger.
I wasn’t holding the rifle properly and the kick knocked me a step backwards. That’s what saved my life. I heard a whine as the pistol bullet passed an inch away from my right ear. I regained my balance, worked the rifle bolt to eject the old cartridge and pointed the weapon back at Sommerfield.
There was no need. He stood, staring at me, the pistol hanging from his limp right arm. A dark stain was growing on the left side of his chest, just below his row of fake medal ribbons.
“You shot me,” Sommerfield said with great effort. He tried to say more but his lips just moved silently. He slowly sank down against one of the stumps.
Ken stepped over and took the pistol from Sommerfield’s grasp. Then he came back and prised the rifle out of my grip.
“He’s dead,” Ken said. “You saved my life.”
I knew I had. I knew Sommerfield was going to kill both of us, but that didn’t make me feel good about killing him.
Ken put his arm around my shoulder and I collapsed against him. I didn’t cry. I felt completely empty, drained of every emotion except relief that it was finally over.
The sergeant, returning with his men and some of the deserters, found us that way, sitting by the firepit with the dead private and Sommerfield. Ken had said nothing in the time we were waiting; he was simply my friend comforting me. But now he resumed his role of officer, detailing men to guard the prisoners and search the camp for weapons, and sending a runner back to headquarters with a request for stretcher bearers and Red Caps.
I sat and watched everything as if I were at a moving picture theatre running a Charlie Chaplin film. My life up to that point seemed like a series of dreams — growing up in the Nicola Valley … the war … living as a deserter. Only this moment appeared real, but there was a distance. Life around me went on, but I couldn’t affect it. All I could do was watch.
The feeling continued into the afternoon when the Red Caps arrived, put me in with the other deserters and herded us out of the woods. Ken tried to encourage me, taking me aside and saying he would move heaven and earth to get me sent to Doctor Rivers’s care at Craiglockhart. I smiled and thanked him, but I didn’t care. Life could do with me as it wanted. I was through with trying to control or change things.
In the days after I shot Sommerfield, my dreams returned. They weren’t as frequent as before, they didn’t leave me with the same sense of growing dread, but they came often enough for me to awake screaming. The shaking only returned after a particularly bad dream, but I had trouble focussing and found myself drifting off in the middle of conversations, even ones that concerned my life and death.
At least, my guilt went away. I no longer felt responsible for Bob’s death. It was sad and I still missed his cheerful personality, and I knew it was wrong of me to have hit him, but I realized that I hadn’t had control over the shell that exploded on the parapet. And who can say what would have happened had Bob remained standing. It was standing up that had caused MacTaggart’s death.
I didn’t feel any guilt around killing Sommerfield either. He was about to kill us both. Not that I minded about me, but I was glad that I had saved Ken’s life. In a strange sense it balanced things and repayed him for saving my life on the hunting trip.
Sommerfield taught me things, too — that life is not fair, and that officers are treated differently from privates, just as the rich lead very different lives from the poor. I never believed in Sommerfield’s ideas of violent revolution and change, but I doubt I’ll ever again see the world as the simple and uncomplicated place I once thought it to be. The problem is, I don’t have very long to see the world anyway.
Epilogue
Outside Amiens, August 24, 1918
“Have you managed to get it all written down?” I ask Paul, who’s been scribbling all night trying to keep up with my torrent of words.
I have almost no voice left. It’s a wrench coming back from all those memories to the grubby hut in the quarry, with that bleak post set in the ground outside.
The dawn light suddenly seems very bright as the candle stub flickers.
“Yes, Allan, I think I got it all,” Paul says. He finishes writing and puts down his pencil.
“Good,” I reply, nodding. I’m content. “I don’t suppose there’s anything left to tell you, then. Will you make sure my story gets to my parents?”
“I will.”
At the thought of my parents, a wave of sadness sweeps over me. I want nothing more than to go home and see them for one last time, but it’s not possible.
“And will you give a copy to Lieutenant Ken Harrison?”
Paul nods.
I had half hoped that Ken would be the one to sit with me this final night. He had spoken passionately at my court martial, saying that I was shell-shocked, confused and had had no intention of deserting when I wandered away from my unit. He also told them about overhearing me telling Sommerfield that I was setting out for Amiens to give myself up.
But it had done no good. The officers had listened sympathetically, but the facts were clear — in their eyes I had deserted so I had to be condemned. Still, I’m sorry that I never had a chance to thank Ken, and it would be nice to be able to say goodbye.
“The firing squad will be here soon?” I ask.
Paul glances at his wristwatch. It’s light enough to read the time without the candle. “They should have been here already,” he says, looking puzzled.
“I’m glad they gave us enough time to finish the story.”
The knock on the door makes Paul jump, but I sit calmly. Not much scares me anymore. The door creaks open to reveal a second officer silhouetted in the frame. “Hello, Allan,” he says.
“Hello, Ken,” I reply, happy that he has come.
He steps in and stands beside the table. “Your reprieve has come through,” he says.
I nod as if I had been expecting it. I know I should react more, feel a surge o
f joy or something, but too much has happened. I feel numb. It will take time for it all to sink in, although I am glad that I will have the chance to see Mom and Dad once more.
“Word should have got to you earlier, but I wanted to tell you myself. I had to go all the way up to General Currie, and he had to talk to Haig. I like to think it was my passion and arguments, and the fact that you saved my life, that did it, but the truth is that the war continues to go well and the General Staff are more inclined to commute death sentences.”
I nod again, not saying anything.
“And I have more good news. Though I cannot get you into Craiglockhart — that is for officers only — I wrote to Dr. Rivers and he has agreed to treat you privately. I have a travel pass and tickets to get you to Scotland.”
“Thank you, Ken,” I say. “And thank you, Paul,” I add, standing and holding out my hand him. He stands and takes it.
“I’m glad it turned out well, Allan,” he says.
“Well?” I repeat. “I don’t know about that. At least I now have time to find out.”
I walk across the room and step though the door into the sunlight. Ken follows me.
Paul stands for a moment, staring after the pair, then he turns and blows out the candle. He picks up his notebook with its pages of shorthand scrawl and gazes at it thoughtfully. Slowly he closes it and returns it to his uniform pocket. On his way out he collects his pistol from the guard. As an afterthought, he turns back and gives him the unopened bottle of whiskey.
Historical Note
Today we remember the taking of Vimy Ridge on Easter Monday, 1917, as the defining Canadian moment in the First World War. Certainly, the Canadians’ storming of the heights that had defied capture by both the British and French for two years was a great achievement. More than that, the memorialization of that battle did much to cement a sense of national identity. However, in the grand strategy of the war it was a relatively minor victory in the much larger engagement that was the terrible Battle of Arras. That is another fight that should engage our attention and command our pride.