As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer

yourrg 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 Compiegne, 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 turnd 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?”
    *
* *
    Sergeant
Charles Trumper was discharged from active service on 20 February 1919, one of
the early ones: the missing toe had at last counted for something. He folded up
his uniform, placed his helmet on top, boots by the side, marched across the
parade ground and handed them in to the quartemmaster.
    “I
hardly recognized you, Sarge, in that old suit and cap. Don’t fit any longer,
do they? You must have grown during your time with the Fussies.”
    Charlie
looked down and checked the length of his trousers: they now hung a good inch
above the laces of his boots.
    “Must
have grown