Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 11/01/10 Page 4
He moved on, inquiring after Sergeant Finney.
At last one man said, “I’m Finney. What can I do for you, sir?”
Patrick said, “My name is Captain Ainsworth. I’m the medical officer assigned to examine Private Knox.”
“Oh. Yes, sir.”
“I’d like to speak with you about him. Is this a bad time?”
“No, sir. We aren’t in the thick of it.”
The whistling of another shell’s descent made Patrick cringe. The explosion, when it came, was farther off than he’d expected. When he straightened up, he saw Sergeant Finney hadn’t flinched at all.
Patrick said, “Is there someplace—” He almost said “safer.” “—where we could talk?”
“Follow me, sir.”
Sergeant Finney led him up the trench and into an empty dugout. It was big enough to accommodate maybe half a dozen men, unlike some of the others Patrick had seen that were barely big enough for one. Looking up, he saw the ceiling consisted of loose sheets of plywood under a sod roof. It looked pretty flimsy.
He turned back to Finney and asked, “Can you tell me what happened with Private Knox?”
“Well, sir, it’s like I said at the court-martial. We got orders to go over the top and Private Knox refused to go. He said he wasn’t going to let his men go, either. When Corporal Daly tried to get him under control, Knox shot him.”
“I didn’t know he tried to keep his squad from going.”
“Yes, sir. I said that at the court-martial. He was yelling that none of them should have to go, on account of them having no chance.”
Patrick thought back to the court-martial record. He’d noticed it didn’t include any transcripts of witness testimony, just very brief summaries. None of them had mentioned this information.
He asked, “What did Knox say, exactly?”
“Oh, you know. That they’d never get across no-man’s-land in one piece, that the Germans were too well armed, that too many of our boys had died already. And that the brass hats didn’t know what they were doing, that they don’t know what it’s really like in the trenches or how to wage a war.”
“He told all this to Corporal Daly?”
“Yes, sir. And the rest of the squad. He was ranting, from what I understand. He said some of it to me when I got there, although I gather he’d calmed down a bit by then.”
“So he was still talking when you got to him.”
“Yes, sir. I had to talk him into surrendering his weapon. I don’t mind telling you, for a while there I thought he was going to shoot me too. His squad were afraid for their lives. That’s why they didn’t turn their backs on him and try to go over the top without him.”
“What happened then?”
“He gave me his rifle and I placed him under arrest. Then I appointed another man in his squad lance corporal and sent them over the top. Then I took Private Knox back to headquarters.”
“He went willingly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he say anything on the way?”
“No, sir.”
“Tell me this: before that day, did you ever see any sign from him that he might lose his nerve?”
“Not really, sir. He seemed a little edgy ever since he came back from hospital, but I never thought he’d go off his rocker.”
Patrick nodded. Just as he’d suspected. “I’d like to talk with the men in his squad.”
“They’re all gone, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“That day they went over the top, they were all killed or wounded. Actually, only one of them was just wounded: Private George. He took it in the leg, I think.”
“I see.”
Finney’s expression darkened a little. “If Knox hadn’t held them up, they would’ve had a chance. We were supposed to attack right after our artillery had softened up the Germans, but by the time I got here and sent Knox’s squad on their way, the Germans had regrouped. Those men are dead because of Knox. And I made sure he knows it.”
“How?”
“I went and saw him in his cell the next day. I looked him in the face and told him about it.”
“Did he react?”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“But did he react at all? Did he hear you?”
“Yes, sir. He heard me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw it in his face. He was looking me in the eye when I told him.”
Patrick considered that for a moment. Then he said, “Thank you, Sergeant. That’ll be all.”
“Very good, sir.”
Patrick started to follow him out of the dugout, but Finney paused in the doorway and said, “Do you know I volunteered to serve on Knox’s firing squad?”
Patrick nodded once, mutely. It was all he could think to do.
Patrick discovered there was a Private George back at the Casualty Clearing Station. The man occupied one of the cots in the evacuation tent, where post-ops waited to be sent to a base hospital. From base the most serious cases would be invalided home. George was one of those; he’d lost his left leg below the knee. As Patrick skimmed his chart, he was surprised to find he was the one who’d amputated George’s leg six days ago. He barely remembered it.
George seemed to be asleep when Patrick approached his cot. Patrick hated to wake him, but he knew he didn’t have much time until the night’s wounded started to come in. The deepening shadows in the tent said twilight was falling outside. Nurses were going around quietly lighting candles and oil lamps.
Patrick set a stool down beside George’s cot and sat on it. “Private George?” he said. “Wake up, Private.”
George stirred. When his eyes opened, they didn’t focus right away. Patrick hoped the morphine wouldn’t make him incoherent.
“How are you feeling, Private?”
“A little better.” George smiled weakly. “Good enough to ship out.”
“So I see.”
“Back to Old Blighty.”
“Good for you.” Patrick chose his next words carefully. “How much do you remember about what happened?”
George’s smile faded. “All of it.”
“And Private Knox? Do you remember what happened with him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were there when he lost his nerve.”
“He didn’t lose his nerve.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” George paused, remembering. “I don’t really know what happened to him. I’ve seen plenty of Tommies crack—new recruits, old-timers. It can happen to anyone if they’re in the trenches long enough. And when it happens, it always happens the same way: They huddle down, curl up into a ball, and don’t move. They lay there and shake, and maybe cry, but they don’t move until you pick them up and carry them back to the rear. That isn’t what happened to Knockers.”
“What did happen to him?”
“I don’t know what to call it. He just wasn’t going to take it anymore.”
“Wasn’t or couldn’t?”
“Wasn’t.”
Patrick sat back a little. George might not know what to call that but Patrick was afraid he did: mutiny. That was a capital offense, too, and if anything it was worse than murder.
He asked George, “Was is it something Private Knox had planned?”
“Oh, no.”
“So what happened, then?”
“Well, when Corporal Daly gave us our orders, Knockers just snapped. He said the people back at HQ were bloody daft. He said they were ordering us to commit suicide.”
“Sergeant Finney says Knox holding you up is what caused the trouble.”
“That’s bollocks. The orders came late. By the time we were told to advance, the Germans already had time to bring up reinforcements.”
Patrick’s brow furrowed. “Why would the orders come late if the plan was for the advance to follow the bombardment?”
“Who knows? It’s not like it was the first time. HQ doe
sn’t know its arse from a hole in the ground. And they don’t have any idea what it’s like at the front. How could they? They spend all their time behind the lines! All the time I spent in the trenches, I never once saw an officer there ranked higher than captain. They all stay back in their nice, safe offices, in their chateaus, and at the first sign of trouble, they pack up their things and fall further back. Once, last spring, when the Germans were pressing us hard, we couldn’t get supplies because the brass had all the trucks packed solid with their file cabinets and featherbeds.”
Patrick wondered if he could believe that. It wasn’t that George didn’t seem lucid, it was just that his candor was so shocking. That might be an effect of the morphine, or it might be because George knew that for him the war was over.
Patrick thought back to his trip to the front lines earlier that day. The looks he’d gotten from a lot of the men took on a new character. Their faces hadn’t just shown surprise, he now realized, but also respect for an officer brave enough to visit the trenches.
He asked George, “Do a lot of the men feel the way you do?”
“Yes.” George darted a glance at him, showing a little self-consciousness at last. “. . . Sir. We don’t talk about it with superiors.”
“It’s all right. You won’t get in any trouble from me.”
George grimaced. “What are they going to do, court-martial me? Maybe they’ll invent a new Field Punishment, make me stand on one leg for hours on end.”
His grimace was partly a grin. Patrick grinned back. George’s recovery must be well underway if he was developing the survivor’s black sense of humor.
Patrick said, “Did you know Knox was court-martialed? And found guilty?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How do you feel about that?”
George shrugged.
Patrick said, “Sergeant Finney volunteered to be on his firing squad. Would you want to, if you could?”
“Only if I could shoot him in the leg.”
They looked at each other for a moment. Then they both chuckled darkly.
George said, “Hell, Captain, what do you want me to say? Corporal Daly didn’t deserve to die, but then again none of us did. We had our orders, though, and that’s all there is to it. We all knew our time could come any day—any minute. You stop worrying about it, eventually.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes. When you’re at the front, you come to understand. You realize you could be killed any minute no matter where you are, even back home. It’s just that at the front, death happens more often, and it’s louder and bloodier.”
Patrick wondered if George knew what had happened to his squad. He wondered if he should tell him.
Instead he said, “What time of day did you go over the top?”
“It was a little after noon.”
“How long after Knox killed Corporal Daly? How long did he keep you there?”
“Maybe an hour. I guess it was an hour until Sergeant Finney came along.”
“But the shelling was already over by then?”
“Yes, a long time.”
“So that hour . . .”
“It didn’t make any difference at all.”
Patrick went to bed tired that night, like every night. But he lay awake for a long time, thinking about Private Knox. He could see now he’d made up his mind about Knox some time ago. He’d decided he was shell shocked and therefore not responsible for his crime. What he’d been looking for was evidence to prove it.
But now he could see Knox’s behavior just didn’t fit the profile. Like George said, shell-shocked soldiers turned inward. They literally collapsed. They didn’t attack their brothers-in-arms. Knox still might be shell shocked; it wasn’t like they had a complete understanding of the disease. It was so new, it had only been given a name earlier this year. For all anyone knew, there might be more than one kind of shell shock and Knox might be the first documented case of this variety. But Patrick wasn’t sure of that and unless he was, he couldn’t diagnose him that way, not in good conscience.
If only Knox hadn’t been right. But his squad’s orders really had been suicide.
The next day, in between rounds, Patrick decided to go see him again. When he got to Knox’s cell, he saw the guard standing outside was the same one as before.
Patrick asked him, “How is he?”
“The same, sir. Didn’t eat a thing all day yesterday or so far today.”
“I’d like to see him.”
The guard unlocked the door. Patrick stepped in. When the guard moved to stand in the doorway, Patrick told him, “It’ll be fine. You can wait outside.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door closed and darkness swept in. The only light was what shone under the door. Patrick waited for his eyes to adjust.
When he was able to distinguish Knox’s shape from the cot he lay on, he stepped closer and said, “It’s me again, Private. Captain Ainsworth.”
Unsurprisingly, Knox didn’t stir.
Patrick said, “I talked to Sergeant Finney. And Private George. He survived the attack. I’m not sure if Sergeant Finney told you that.”
Patrick could see well enough now to notice no change in Knox’s expression. He just stared blindly at the ceiling, his eyes half closed.
Patrick said, “Sergeant Finney says the men in your squad died because you delayed them but I wanted you to know I don’t believe that. Private George doesn’t believe it either. And he doesn’t seem to hold any grudge against you. I don’t think he has any reason to. In fact, I think you saved his life. He got hit in the leg when he was about fifty yards away from our lines. He had to lay there all afternoon until the stretcher-bearers could get to him. By the time they brought him in, he was in very bad shape. He’d lost a lot of blood. I talked to the people who prepped him for surgery and they said if he’d laid out there another hour, he would have bled to death.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you? Your holding him up probably saved his life. There’s no chance he could have avoided getting wounded altogether, given how ready the Germans were when your orders came through. Maybe he could have taken a less serious wound, but I doubt it. No one else in your squad did. He was in the right place at the right time, thanks to you.”
Patrick waited for a reaction. He waited a long time. But he didn’t get one.
Finally he turned and walked to the door. He heard a sigh behind him. He turned around. Knox hadn’t moved but now his eyes were closed.
Patrick said, “Private Knox?”
Knox didn’t move or speak. Patrick waited another minute, then turned and left.
Back at the Casualty Clearing Station, Patrick stopped at the first empty desk he found, put a sheet of Royal Army Medical Corps stationery in the typewriter and wrote his opinion:
To: Col. Wm. R. Browning, OC, 4th Bn, 228th Infantry Brigade
From: Capt. Patrick L. Ainsworth, RMO, 16th CCS
Re: Medical Condition of Pvt. Conrad S. Knox
Sir,
Having examined and observed Private Knox, I conclude that he was not insane at the time he committed his crime. However, his current state of catatonia strongly suggests that he possessed a latent mental defect that was exacerbated by the trauma of war. Given this, as well as his exemplary service record prior to his crime and the intense emotional strain he endured while serving at the front, I recommend in the interest of justice that his death sentence be commuted to one of imprisonment or penal servitude.
Sincerely,
Capt. Patrick L. Ainsworth
Patrick went back to his regular duties, hopeful but not convinced he’d done everything he could for Private Knox. He didn’t have much time to dwell on it. Later that same day, the Allied troops stationed on the Somme commenced a big push. He was quickly snowed under with wounded.
It took several days for any news about Knox to reach him. When it did, he learned that on the evening of that last day he visited him, Knox began to stir. He at
e a little of the dinner brought to him, and the next morning the guard who arrived with his breakfast found him sitting upright. When the guard asked him how he was, Knox said, “Fine.”
Major Olmstead interrogated Knox again, briefly; like everyone else, the major was very busy now that a new offensive was underway. Knox was still largely uncommunicative, but when Major Olmstead asked him if he felt any remorse for what he’d done, Knox said, “At least I saved one of them.”
Sir Douglas Haig confirmed Knox’s sentence the next day, despite Patrick’s opinion. None of Knox’s superiors recommended him to mercy. He was executed by firing squad on October 15, 1916.
Copyright © 2010 Eric Rutter
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Fiction
A GOOD MAN
CATHRYN GRANT
Art by Edward Kinsella III
David had been a good boy and he was a good man. So why was this happening to him? He’d worked hard. The result was a five-bedroom home in Silicon Valley on a street with mature California oak trees. He coached his daughter’s soccer team and spent winter weekends snowboarding with both kids. In the spring, he played golf with his son. When an anniversary or a birthday rolled around, he took his wife out to dinner and bought her a fourteen-carat gold trinket. He’d never stolen anything. He’d never cheated on Lin or his taxes. He tried to stay active. Yeah, he had a bit of a gut now, but what man didn’t at the age of forty-five? At least he still had a full head of hair. He was a good looking guy who still saw women slip second glances in his direction, but he never tried to get what he might out of that.
Pundits speculated on a jobless recovery, whatever that was. Financial institutions had collapsed on their greed, or were propped up with tax dollars. The business headlines were a steady stream of cost reductions: three hundred here, a thousand there, five thousand next month. Now, he was a cost reduction. He had plenty of company, but it was humiliating. Lin would look at him with her glossy chocolate eyes and he would see a mixture of fear and disgust. Mostly fear, but that other part would be there too, when she blinked, or looked away.