The Man on the Shovel

The Man on the Shovel.

It looked like the surface of the moon. That sounds rather fanciful as we sit here safe at home, but then and there it was a topic of serious discussion. After all, one had only to look up at night to see the resemblence. There was the same cratered surface, the same muddy color, even the same eerie glow as the starshells floated overhead.

In the middle of this lunar landscape stood a shovel, sticking out of the ground like a flagpole. Of course at that time there were no flagpoles on the moon. This was Somewhere In France, and the date was October, 1917. The shovel itself was of little interest. After all there were a good many more important things to think about. What drew the eye was the body on the shovel.

Why someone was digging a hole in the middle of all those shellholes was a mystery that would never be solved. anyone should have known that such an activity would be fatal. But through some quirk of chance, when the inevitable happened. the digger had slumped over his shovel. There he hung, leaning forward with his arms hanging down and his face obscured by his body.

It was Quiet on this part of the front. This was a relative term. It meant that the artillery shells exploded less than once a minute, and were intended rather to attack the nerves than to do any physical damage. Occasionally, there would be the crack of a rifle or a burst of machine gun fire as someone incautiously exposed himself for too long. Someone, somewhere was probably catching hell today, but here it was Quiet, and everyone on both sides of the line sincerely thanked God for that.

Rupert had been staring at the man on the shovel for more than an hour. He was crouched in a dugout, peering through a firing slit. He was supposedly manning a Vickers machine gun, but since it was Quiet, there was nothing to shoot at. "I wonder who that is?", he murmured.

Algy, who had been sleeping beside him, snorted and looked up. "What? What did you say?"

" The man on the shovel, I wonder who he is."

"What man?" Algy got up and looked through the firing slit, being careful to stay well back so that he could not be seen. "Will you look at that! When did he get there?"

Rupert shook his head. "I don't know. I just looked out and there he was." The two continued to stare in silance at the man on the shovel for several minutes. They were finally distracted by a noise behind them.

They turned to look as Bill crawled into the dugout. Bill was technically off duty, but that meant little in the trenches. "I got bored, so I decided to come where the action is."' he said somewhat ironically.

"Have you seen him?"' Rupert asked.

Bill obviously had not. "Seen who?"' he replied

"The man on the shovel" Rupert gestured toward the firing slit.

Bill moved forward next to Algy,also keeping well back. "That poor sod. What was he doing out there with a shovel?"

Rupert shook his head. "no one knows. No one knows who he is, or why he was out there, or even when he got it It's all very strange."

After a moment of silence, Algy spoke up. "That's not Hall, is it?"

"It can't be."'Bill replied, "He got sent to the rear for forty-eight hours. He's not due back until tomorrow morning.

Algy gave a grunt and laid back down. In a couple of hours he was due to relieve Rupert. Then he would watch while Rupert napped. In the meantime, the man on the shovel wasn't going anywhere. At the same time Bill turned and left the dugout without a word.

Rupert continued to watch the man on the shovel, trying to imagine why anyone would take a shovel out into the middle of all those shellholes. Suddenly, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He jerked as if from an electrical shock, and turned his head to see what it was. His hand automatically reached for the Vickers, then stopped. He said a word his mother would not have approved of.

Upon leaving the dugout, Bill had crawled out of the trench and was now crawling toward the man on the shovel. As he crawled there came a burst of machine gun fire from the German trenches. It wasn't very close, however. It was Quiet, after all, and no one really wanted that to change.

Upon hearing the firing, Algy jumped up, grabbed his gun, and looked out the firing slit. He said the same word Rupert had. He jerked himself back just as Rupert reached for his arm. He suddenly felt sweaty and short of breath. He had just exposed his entire head for nearly two seconds. If everyone had not been concentrating on Bill, he would probably be dead.

A moment later, artillery shells began to fall. Artillerymen lived half a mile behind the trenches and were not concerned about Quiet. Bill ignored the first shell, which fell short and far to the left. Ten seconds later, another shell fell rather closer. At that, Bill got up and began to run crouched over. It was better to keep moving. That made it harder to zero in on you. He still moved toward the man on the shovel, however.

After a few more seconds another shell fell. It was behind Bill this time, but still to the left. It didn't seem to be close, but was obviously close enough. Bill felt a blow on the back of his thigh and fell with a yell. At almost the same time, Rupert yelled and grabbed the handle of the Vickers. He started to fire bursts toward the German trenches, trying to give Bill covering fire. Another machine gun down the line joined in. There was no return fire from the Germans. They were evidently content to let the artillery do the job.

Bill put his hand on the back of his leg and brought it away bloody. He felt a sharp jab of pain as his hand brushed something. He investigated again and pulled out a piece of shrapnel about the size of his thumbnail, although miuch thicker. With a shudder he threw it away. Nonetheless, he knew he had been lucky. The shrapnel should have gone much deeper, and could just as easily hit his head as his leg. He was suddenly aware of just how stupid it had been to crawl out into the open like this.

Algy had dropped his rifle and was handling the ammunition to see that it properly fed into the Vickers. He yelled over the sound of the gun. "I think I see him moving!" Rupert did not respond. He simply kept firing bursts, swivelling the gun back and forth for maximum supression effect. Bill now jumped up and ran back toward the trenches. Those watching saw him limping noticably, but he was not aware of it. He was concentrating on running as fast as he could.

As he neared the trench he dove forward. It seemed to him like he floated in mid-air for about thirty seconds, giving him plenty of time to stare at the bottom of the trench nine feet below and contemplate the fact that he had probably just made another mistake. As he hovered there, a shell exploded in exactly the spot he had just vacated, although he never knew it. Suddenly, time sped up again and Bill found himself lying crumpled in the bottom of the trench. He didn't remember landing, and would later say he was just as glad he didn't.

As he was sorting himself out,he saw Algy and Rupert looking at him from the entrance to the dugout. "Are you all right?"' Rupert asked.

Bill nodded and unselfconsciously pulled down his pants. After all, there were no women in the trenches, and the men who were there were not likely to be offended by the sight of limbs that were still attached. As he began to wind a bandage around his leg, Sgt. Major Vaughn came around the corner of the nearest zig-zag in the trench."What the @#$% is going on here?", he asked.

Sgt. Major Vaughn never yelled, but he had a way of making his ire felt. Algy's head quickly disappeared. He had been on the receiving end of Sgt. Major Vaughn's tongue too often. "Bill tried to go out after the man on the shovel."' Rupert explained, gesturing toward no-mans land.

With a grunt, Sgt. Major Vaughn pushed past Rupert into the dugout. He peered out of the firing slit at the man on the shovel. With another grunt, he turned to go. "Leave the bugger alone. He's not going anywhere. We'll go out and get him after dark."

Rupert nodded aand watched him leave. Then he turned back to stare some more at the man on the shovel.