As the Crow Flies

“Any problems, lad?” asked the color sergeant, which Charlie recognized as a coded message for “Can you write?”

“No problems, Sarge.”

For the next hour he wrote out his thoughts slowly, then rewrote the simple account of what had taken place on 18 July 1918 during the second battle of the Marne.

Charlie read and reread his banal offering, aware that although he extolled Tommy’s courage during the battle he made no mention of Trentham fleeing from the enemy. The plain truth was that he hadn’t witnessed what was going on behind him. He might well have formed his own opinion but he knew that would not bear cross-examination, at some later date. And as for Tommy’s death, what proof had he that one stray bullet among so many had come from the pistol of Captain Trentham? Even if Tommy had been right on both counts and Charlie voiced those opinions, it would only be his word against that of an officer and a gentleman.

The only thing he could do was make sure that Trentham received no praise from his pen for what had taken place on the battlefield that day. Feeling like a traitor, Charli

e scribbled his signature on the bottom of the second page before handing in his report to the orderly officer.

Later that afternoon the duty sergeant allowed him an hour off to dig the grave in which they would bury Private Prescott. As he knelt by its head he cursed the men on either side who could have been responsible for such a war.

Charlie listened to the chaplain intone the words, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” before the last post was played yet again. Then the burial party took a pace to the right and began digging the grave of another known soldier. A hundred thousand men sacrificed their lives on the Marne. Charlie could no longer accept that any victory was worth such a price.

He sat cross-legged at the foot of the grave, unaware of the passing of time as he hewed out a cross with his bayonet. Finally he stood and placed it at the head of the mound. On the center of the cross he had carved the words, “Private Tommy Prescott.”

A neutral moon returned that night to shine on a thousand freshly dug graves, and Charlie swore to whatever God cared to listen that he would not forget his father or Tommy or, for that matter, Captain Trentham.

He fell asleep among his comrades. Reveille stirred him at first light, and after one last look at Tommy’s grave he returned to his platoon, to be informed that the Colonel of the Regiment would be addressing the troops at zero nine hundred hours.

An hour later he was standing to attention in a depleted square of those who had survived the battle. Colonel Hamilton told his men that the Prime Minister had described the second battle of the Marne as the greatest victory in the history of the war. Charlie found himself unable to raise a voice to join his cheering comrades.

“It was a proud and honorable day to be a Royal Fusilier,” continued the colonel, his monocle still firmly in place. The regiment had won a VC, six MCs and nine MMs in the battle. Charlie felt indifferent as each of the decorated men was announced and his citation read out until he heard the name of Lieutenant Arthur Harvey who, the colonel told them, had led a charge of Number 11 Platoon all the way up to the German trenches, thus allowing those behind him to carry on and break through the enemy’s defenses. For this he was posthumously awarded the Military Cross.

A moment later Charlie heard the colonel utter the name of Captain Guy Trentham. This gallant officer, the colonel assured the regiment, careless of his own safety, continued the attack after Lieutenant Harvey had fallen, killing several German soldiers before reaching their dugouts, where he wiped out a complete enemy unit single-handed. Having crossed the enemy’s lines, he proceeded to chase two Germans into a nearby forest. He succeeded in killing both enemy soldiers before rescuing two Fusiliers from German hands. He then led them back to the safety of the Allied trenches. For this supreme act of courage Captain Trentham was also awarded the Military Cross.

Trentham stepped forward and the troops cheered as the colonel removed a silver cross from a leather case before pinning the medal on his chest.

One sergeant major, three sergeants, two corporals and four privates then had their citations read out, each one named and his acts of heroism recalled in turn. But only one of them stepped forward to receive his medal.

“Among those unable to be with us today,” continued the colonel, “is a young man who followed Lieutenant Harvey into the enemy trenches and then killed four, perhaps five German soldiers before later stalking and shooting another, finally killing a German officer before being tragically killed himself by a stray bullet when only yards from the safety of his own trenches.” Once again the assembled gathering cheered.

Moments later the parade was dismissed and while others returned to their tents, Charlie walked slowly back behind the lines until he reached the mass burial ground.

He knelt down by a familiar mound and after a moment’s hesitation yanked out the cross that he had placed at the head of the grave.

Charlie unclipped a knife that hung from his belt and beside the name “Tommy Prescott” he carved the letters “MM.”

A fortnight later one thousand men, with a thousand legs, a thousand arms and a thousand eyes between them, were ordered home. Sergeant Charles Trumper of the Royal Fusiliers was detailed to accompany them, perhaps because no man had been known to survive three charges on the enemy’s lines.

Their cheerfulness and delight at still being alive only made Charlie feel more guilty. After all, he had only lost one toe. On the journey back by land, sea and land, he helped the men dress, wash, eat and be led without complaint or remonstration.

At Dover they were greeted on the quayside by cheering crowds welcoming their heroes home. Trains had been laid on to dispatch them to all parts of the country, so that for the rest of their lives they would be able to recall a few moments of honor, even glory. But not for Charlie. His papers only instructed him to travel on to Edinburgh where he was to help train the next group of recruits who would take their places on the Western Front.

On 11 November 1918, at eleven hundred hours, hostilities ceased and a grateful nation stood in silence for three minutes when on a railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne, the Armistice was signed. When Charlie heard the news of victory he was training some raw recruits on a rifle range in Edinburgh. Some of them were unable to hide their disappointment at being cheated out of the chance to face the enemy.

The war was over and the Empire had won—or that is how the politicians presented the result of the match between Britain and Germany.

“More than nine million men have died for their country, and some even before they had finished growing,” Charlie wrote in a letter to his sister Sal. “And what has either side to show for such carnage?”

Sal wrote back to let him know how thankful she was he was still alive and went on to say that she had become engaged to a pilot from Canada. “We plan to marry in the next few weeks and go to live with his parents in Toronto. Next time you get a letter from me it will be from the other side of the world.

“Grace is still in France but expects to return to the London Hospital some time in the new year. She’s been made a ward sister. I expect you know her Welsh corporal caught pneumonia. He died a few days after peace had been declared.

“Kitty disappeared off the face of the earth and then without warning turned up in Whitechapel with a man in a motorcar; neither of them seemed to be hers but she looked very pleased with life.”

Charlie couldn’t understand his sister’s P.S.: “Where will you live when you get back to the East End?”