Coming Soon - Soldiers Are Not Always Nice (Revised)
I found the body on a bet.
At the time I was with Cockrobin, officially known as Lieutenant Rory Glenrobin, his batman driver Private Schmidt, unofficially known as ‘Schmittie’’.
I'm Rabbi Hawkins. Twenty bucks was riding on Cockrobin’s ability to guide an armoured personnel carrier over hill and dale, through the woods, swamps and innumerable criss-crossed trails that made up the Camp Gagetown, New Brunswick, training area. He was an officer so I was betting against it.
The bet had begun when we had been instructed by radio message to move from our present location at an observation tower near the Browntown Road to sort out some kind of a firefight between our soldiers and the enemy troops about four and a half miles away as the crow flies, or three and half days if said crow is in an APC, navigated by an officer.
This APC was of the variety known as a Lynx. It's a three man armoured fighting vehicle. Used chiefly for reconnaissance, it carried a driver, signaller and crew commander.
The body I found was not part of the exercise. And once it had been found, then as I saw it, I had a clear and real obligation to discover how the body arrived where it did. Of course, there were people in the battalion who didn't agree with my decision, the main objectors being my Company Sergeant Major, Patrick Garrett.
His, you might say, sidekick in this plan to derail Private (Eye) Hawkins, was the MacCammons' military police Staff Sergeant, Pritchard-Ingalls. With them dogging my footsteps, or putting army duties as the top priority of work, you can see that I was going to have a difficult job solving the crime.
