But Vincent knew something about the man in front of him that his grandfather had not. Because of this, Vincent went against his training and focused his sight on the man across the line from him. He had a good look at the man’s face and there was no mistaking the man.
Vincent had never killed a man but none of that mattered now. This man would be his first and he would be doing the world a favor even though no one would ever realize the impact. Once this man was dead, everything the man would become would die with him.
Vincent pulled the trigger and watched as the man’s chest exploded. The man fell backwards and Vincent knew his shot had been true.
“What are you doing, Shakespeare?” his Sergeant shouted at him above the gunfire. “We’re here to take out their ability to fire, not pick off one bloke at a time! That’s why we have sharpshooters.”
Vincent allowed his training to kick back in and began firing in short bursts as he had before he shot the young German. Ten minutes later, after several rotations of men firing, the Howitzers were in position and Vincent, distracted, momentarily forgot what he had done.
Across No Man’s Land from the British forces, the young officer lay in the mud, spitting blood. The shot he had incurred did not kill him right away. It punctured and exited his right lung. His lung had collapsed and now his own ragged breathing was his world. A doctor had come to his side in the trench but after seeing that the young officer would not make it, he made the man comfortable and then moved on to others whom he could save.
Another soldier sat by his side, keeping him company until the end, which he knew now would not be long in coming. He barely knew the man beside him. He had seen him a few times but the man was enlisted and not an officer and so there had been very little interaction between the two of them. He had many friends in the unit and it was ironic that he had given his life to military service and the other officers had become almost a family to him; yet even so he was dying next to a stranger.
What Vincent didn’t know was that the officer that he had shot would have killed him within the next few minutes if he had not shot the officer. His great-grandfather had been killed on that front line by that officer but now Vincent had changed that.
The man that Vincent shot finally died. It took several agonizing minutes – agony that was well deserved but not near long enough to justify the pain he would cause others; but now that man was no more. The world would never know the significance of that death and the favor that Vincent had done for humanity that day by pulling the trigger.
The officer who was shot that day was Adolph Hitler. And now he was dead.
Vincent thought later that night on what he had done. The gunfire had wound down and now only the mortar shells pounded the earth – a sound to which Vincent had grown accustomed. In the relative quiet and peace (as peaceful a moment during warfare can be) under the Belgium night sky, Vincent closed his eyes. What he saw within was unexpected.
When Vincent first arrived, he had felt like an intruder, like he had possessed his grandfather’s body. He didn’t notice the change at first. But now with his eyes closed, he once again became aware of himself. Only now he no longer felt that he was trapped in someone else’s body. He felt the body was his own.
He opened his eyes.
Across No Man’s Land, another set of eyes was open as well. These eyes were peering across the waste trying to decide what to do. It was fortunate for Vincent that that man in the German trench decided not to come over to the British side (which he could have done very easily and without being caught). Vincent was free to live for a while longer as a result of that decision.
Vincent didn’t know that the man in the opposite trench had killed countless people compared to his one. And now Vincent was a person of interest to Jack.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Passchendaele, Belgium – November 1917
Jack had long been an admirer of warfare. One could say that he adored such occasions. The carnage that resulted from the antagonism was almost sexual to Jack. He felt an ecstasy in observing a wide field of dead bodies; an ecstasy that rivaled any orgasm he had ever experienced. The smell of death was more carnal than the scent of any woman and the blood created a lust deeper than any act of sex.
That lust for blood and corpses brought Jack on vacation from his other time. If the wars of history were a range of mountains, World War I was his Mount Everest, and the Battle of Passchendaele was his summit.
As such, Jack found himself in the German trench, looking down at the officer dead at his knees. History would suggest that he was the one who killed the officer but he did not – although normally he would have relished the idea. No, this officer was different and even he knew better than to kill a man such as him.
He motioned to the men carrying stretchers that the man had died. The bodies of fallen soldiers were sent back through the lines to be
