Colonel Berry

Chapter One

Bern, Switzerland — Friday, 17 March 1916

David drove Maria to the university for her first lecture of the day, and they stood for a long while in a silent embrace just inside the entrance of the medical school. Then he watched her last wave before she disappeared along the crowded hall.

He walked in the cold drizzle to the car, then he threaded through the Bern traffic again, and once he was on the quieter road heading down the Aar Valley, he let his mind wander. The most amazing woman I've ever met. Pregnant again, and I'm leaving her. He shook his head and concentrated on the series of sharp curves in the road.

A while later, as he followed the road across the broad flats beside Lake Bienne, he allowed his mind to wander again. What if I hadn't enlisted? What would I be doing? Finishing university in Vancouver this spring. Then what? Accepting the boring comfort? Sitting in the office cyphering? Listening to my parents argue? 

He laughed to himself. Or venturing off track to write my own destiny. So, here I am in Europe, sitting in the eye of the storm while the world descends into the increasing chaos of the bickering nobility.

As he passed the junction of the road to Bienne, he glanced at his watch and smiled. Juggling four identities as events sweep me along. The next seven weeks, I'm a winemaker's son, and Maria is my sister.

He sighed. I'll miss her.

David continued reviewing events of the nearly eleven months since he had been wounded at Ypres. Makes sense to use my story. It fits the timing of everything else. The only difference is saying I was a German soldier at the time, and that I was deserting, not evading and escaping.

Schaffhausen, Switzerland

The rain had eased by the time David reached the Rhine and turned east, and it had stopped before he crossed the bridge into Schaffhausen at twenty past eleven. He followed the directions in his letter, and a few minutes later, he stopped in a small courtyard in front of the Zeughaus.

He sat in the Lancia for several minutes, reviewing his story and trying to find any holes it might have. Seeing none, he picked up his satchel, locked the car and approached the soldier who was directing arriving young men. "Good morning. I'm to report at noon for indoctrination."

The soldier pointed to a door. "The orderly room is through there and to the right. Korporal Wengen will direct you from there."

David thanked him and headed inside to join the end of the short line. When he reached the counter, he handed the corporal his passport and the letter. "I've been ordered to report for training."

The corporal read the name, then he opened a folder and leafed through its thick stack of papers, selecting one from halfway down. After scanning the note pinned to its top corner, he said, "You're to report to the Admin Officer." He picked up the pages and the passport as he pointed toward a door. "Come with me."

David nodded and followed as he thought. What's this about? Have I been found out? Surely they don't have access to German files.

While Wengen explained to the officer the reason behind the contents of the note, David's mind continued to analyse. I'm a year and a half late in reporting for service. I've a solid explanation for that. And Grandpa applied for an extension...

He paused as the officer addressed him. "This says your training was deferred because of injuries. What were your injuries?

David made a vee across his cheek. "A big triangular hole all the way through here, Sir." Then he ran a finger from his lip to his chin. "And my mouth was split open down to the point of my chin. My beard hides the scars well, so I'd like to keep it." He laughed. "And I keep the scars across my buttocks hidden in my trousers."

"How did you receive these?"

"Shrapnel from an exploding mortar shell, Sir."

"And where were you to be in the way of a mortar shell?"

"At Ypres last April, Sir."

"And what were you doing in the way of a mortar shell in Belgium?"

"Following orders, Sir. I had been conscripted into the German Army, and after my training, I was taken there."

"And why were you conscripted?"

"My family had earlier moved across the border into Germany to plant vineyards and make wine. When they moved back to Schaffhausen in May, I deserted from the Army and came with them."

"So, you're still officially in the German Army."

"I suppose so, Sir. But as an unwilling conscript. They list me as dead; I had taken a dead soldier's identity tag and left mine on him as I began planning an escape." David ran his fingers through his hair. "Both my grandfathers had been officers in the Swiss Army; one a major and one a colonel. Neither of them considers my time with the German Army as anything except against my will. My desertion while on sick leave was my first opportunity to escape."

The officer nodded as he pencilled a note. Then he looked up and asked, "And who are your grandfathers?"

"Jacob Meier of Weingut Meirehof west of Unterhallau and Michael Smeaton of Küsnacht outside Zürich, Sir."

The officer nodded as he wrote, and when he had finished, he tapped his pencil. After a long pause, he asked, "Have your wounds healed well?"

"I still awaken to nightmares of the horrors I had experienced in the trenches, Sir. But, physically, I've still a slight numbness in my lip from the wounds and a shortness of breath from the chlorine."

The officer grimaced. "You were involved in the gas attacks?"

"The battalion was ordered to advance after the gas had spread, and there were still pockets of it in the hollows and in shell craters."

The officer nodded again as he leafed through the papers. "Do you think you're sufficiently fit to take your training now?"

"I had been thinking I might forego much of the drill and disciplinary training since I've already endured that, Sir. I need only a reorientation to the Swiss regulations, routines and practices, so the repetition of the incessant repetition seems unnecessary." David chuckled.

The Admin Officer laughed with him. "You're not only eloquent, but you're also a skilled negotiator. Where have you studied?"

David flashed the answer through his mind. "Abroad." It fits the story. Weave it in.

"That's a broad reply." The officer chuckled. "Where abroad?"

"At McGill University's new campus on Canada's west coast. Two years of Business Administration and Finance. The war broke out while I was back here visiting family."

"And why Canada?"

"I was intrigued by the fresh entrepreneurial spirit of the New World."

"So, you speak English?

"And also French, Sir. My grandparents raised my mother speaking and writing three languages, and she carried on with the practice."

As the officer jotted another note, he was interrupted by a knock on his open door. He looked up. "Yes?"

"Sir, Korporal Wengen told me you've already seen this Herrr Meier." She waved a sheet of paper. "The Commandant wishes to speak with you about him."