Chapter 4: Whistleblower Part 1

| Part 1: My Analogy | Part 2: My Reality |

High Treason

“Who’s on the Lord’s side, who?”

~~~~~~~~~~

New recruits at Camp Broadmeadows

Robert Crowe had always been a patriot of the British Empire, despite having been raised about as far from London as you could possibly get. He was proud of his British heritage and what his forefathers had accomplished in the fields of science, technology, literature, and other passions that he shared. When King George V addressed the dominions of the British Empire in 1914, pleading for help to protect the Commonwealth and defeat the Kaiser, Robert enlisted in the army without a second thought.

He began his military training at Camp Broadmeadows, located just outside his hometown of Melbourne, Australia. The size of his regiment grew every day as new volunteers in civilian clothes marched from central Melbourne to the camp.

Given the overwhelming response, it soon became clear that conscription would be entirely unnecessary in Australia. Those who hadn’t joined up straight away ultimately realized that staying home would not be a viable choice due to the public embarrassment associated with their perceived cowardice. In fact, posters and newspaper advertisements all around the young country encouraged women to shame their male relatives into joining the army, resulting in a prevailing attitude that became even more effective than a draft.

Robert began his military service as a simple foot soldier – holding the rank of a private – and he was sent to the front lines just as the Dardanelles campaign was getting underway in Turkey. Upon arrival on the Gallipoli Peninsula, he was directed to the newly cleared parade grounds, where he stood in line with other new recruits in their clean uniforms, waiting to be briefed on the next steps in their mission to topple Constantinople.

The boys cheered at the speech given by Sergeant Major Ray Carter, a decorated veteran of the Battle of Marne, who reminded each of them how proud they were making their mothers and fathers by fighting against oppression and saving the crown. While they prepared for the assault, they sang army songs and got to know each other even better than they knew their own families. Crowe eventually found that he would trust every brother in the band with his own life – and that he had the mutual trust of his fellow soldiers as well.

Despite their training and bravado, however, life in the trenches soon started sapping the soldiers’ morale. When the whistle finally blew – committing them to climb the ladder for the first time and head “over the top” of the trench – some of the soldiers hesitated. Private Crowe, on the other hand, went straight up the ladder and charged ahead without any reluctance whatsoever. When he realized that other soldiers were starting to follow his lead, he confidently motioned the whole gang toward the next trench and dropped in.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Crowe thought as they all took their places in their new position.

At Carter’s direction, they spent the next few days digging a new supply trench to connect back to the command center and made other preparations for the next advance. In the meantime, for his diligent, unquestioning adherence to the commander in charge, Crowe was promoted to the rank of Corporal.

“Here’s a whistle of your own,” Sergeant Carter said, briefing Crowe on his new role as a leader.

Crowe seemed a bit nervous about the road ahead.

“Don’t worry,” Carter said, “we have this one in the bag.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked Crowe.

“Just have a look at this map,” replied Carter, “which came to us with a direct order from the General himself!”

“We have the advantage of high ground,” Crowe read aloud from the typed order, “and as you can see on the map, it’s all downhill from here!”

In the meantime, a set of fresh new recruits marched in through the newly dug trench, and Carter assigned a handful of them to Crowe’s company. There wasn’t a single draftee among them; in fact, the entire Australian contingent in this war was made up of volunteers, a fact that was reflected in their sanguine demeanor.

In his first act as a new corporal, Crowe sat his men down, showed them the map of the battlefield, and told them what was required of them – and how he had managed to advance to this spot himself. The instructions were very simple:

“When you hear the whistle,” he said, “just charge straight ahead as fast as you can run until you get to the next trench.”

As they all lined up to take their positions for the next advance, Corporal Crowe started hearing machine gun fire.

“Do you hear that?” he shouted to Carter.

“I don’t hear a thing,” Sergeant Carter yelled back, “get ready for my signal!”

Something didn’t feel right to Crowe. The machine gun fire seemed to be coming from overhead.

“Ready!” shouted Carter.

“Wait one second,” Crowe responded, feeling the weight of responsibility for his new recruits.

“What?” yelled Carter, “You’ll put the mission at risk if you stall!”

“Quick, hand me that periscope,” Crowe said to one of his recruits, ignoring Carter.

“Put that down!” Sergeant Carter yelled, “you know the General’s orders: nobody gets to use the periscope – it will give away our position to the enemy!”

With bullets whizzing closely over his head, Crowe knew full well that their position was already well known to their Turkish counterparts. If they indeed held the high ground, how could the bullets be hitting the back of his own trench? It didn’t make any sense, and he felt compelled to check it out for himself.

Crowe moved himself out of Sergeant Carter’s sight and put the periscope up for a quick look around at the battlefield. What he saw shocked him. Quite opposite from the contours drawn on the map, the ground actually sloped uphill from the trench, and at the top of the hill he could see prominent machine gun positions manned by Ottoman gunners. He ran back to his position, unsure of his duty in light of this new intelligence.

“Charge!” shouted Carter, flashing a signal to every corporal in the trenches as an order to start blowing their whistles.

“Inspire them, motivate them, force them if you must,” Carter had told them earlier during their training, “but whatever you do, just get them over the top!”

Crowe knew his job: stand by the ladder and blow the whistle like the other corporals were doing.

As he heard the sound of their whistles and looked his own soldiers in the eyes, though, he made a fateful decision: He dropped his own whistle and ran right past Carter toward the supply trench.

“Are you retreating?” Carter demanded

“Look, I’ve seen the battlefield,” Crowe said, “the maps are wrong!”

“I told you not to look out there!” Carter screamed.

“Well now we both know it’s a mess!” Crowe shouted back.

“You don’t get to call the shots,” Carter said, “I outrank you!”

But Crowe was already out of earshot; he kept running at full speed through the trenches as a steady stream of enlisted men filed past him in the opposite direction. Finally he stormed into the command center.

“Your maps are wrong,” he shouted to the Colonel, quite out of breath.

“No they’re not!” responded the startled officer, “and who are you to question the maps?”

“Look at this,” Crowe said, pointing to the maps on the wall, “these show a downhill slope from our trenches.”

“That’s right,” said the Colonel, “these maps were hand-drawn by the General himself who just flew over the battlefield yesterday – I can guarantee you they are 100% right!”

“But have you seen what’s actually out there?” Crowe asked.

“No,” responded the Colonel, “but I don’t have to – I trust the General.”

“Well, I’ve seen it,” Crowe countered, “and it’s uphill all the way!”

“You’re out of line, Corporal,” shouted the Colonel, “and on your way to committing high treason against her majesty the Queen!”

“Call the General and ask him yourself,” said Crowe.

“Fine,” responded the Colonel, “but I’m only making the call to provide some evidence for your court martial for abandoning your position.”

The Colonel went into the adjacent tent to talk with the radio operator. He emerged a few minutes later with a response.

“Ok, so it turns out the maps aren’t entirely accurate,” he said, “but the General has directed us not to tell the soldiers, since it would put our credibility and their morale at risk.”

“But there are machine gunners all around the hill,” said Crowe, “Shouldn’t our troops know that we’re in an unsustainable position!”

“Look, when he said downhill, that’s actually correct,” said the Colonel, “but it’s meant to be understood figuratively.”

“What?” asked Crowe.

“When I say ‘it’s all downhill from here’,” responded the Colonel, “I obviously don’t mean it’s literally a downward slope!”

“But your maps show a literal downward slope – that’s what we’ve all been following!”

“Oh come on, Corporal, don’t be so naïve,” responded the Colonel, “We just drew the maps that way to improve the spirits among the ranks.”

“Are you serious?” asked Crowe.

“Sometimes you just have to create a bit of your own truth to get the job done.”

“But we’re going to lose this battle!” countered Crowe.

“You’ve lost your vision,” the Colonel said, “and you’ve failed in your duty to inspire your troops.”

“I think I’ve actually increased my field of vision,” said Crowe, “and in my vision, this doesn’t end well for us unless we change our course.”

“You can rest assured,” the Colonel replied, “that our victory is absolutely certain here.”

“It’s going to be a slaughter,” Crowe said, “We’re going to end up wishing we had retreated from this position.”

“Our triumph here is 100% guaranteed!” responded the Colonel, “But you’ve got to do your part now and get your tail back out there…otherwise you’ll be hanged for treason while we’re having our victory party – make your choice!”

Crowe just sat there puzzled.

“Just trust me,” the Colonel said, “Now get back to your trench!”

~~~~~~~~~~

This is where the story of Corporal Crowe ends…for now. It could obviously go a few different ways from here. So, if this were a “choose your own ending” book, which ending would you choose for the Corporal? Here are a few options, each with an entirely different outcome for him and for the troops assigned to him:

Should Crowe:

Go back to the trench and promote the fabrication?
Go back to the trench and tell his troops the truth?
Talk himself into believing that the fabrication is the truth?
Go back to the trench and pretend to follow orders, but secretly organize a mutiny?
Leak the fabrication to the press?
Take the court martial with silent defiance?
Shout the truth from the gallows?
Run for his life and assume a new identity?
Surrender to the enemy and assume his fate as a prisoner of war in a Turkish prison?
Switch sides and fight to save Constantinople from the invaders?

What do you think Crowe should do at this crucial decision point? What is his duty to God? To his country? To his fellow soldiers in the trenches? If it were you standing on that ladder, and you heard the whistle blow after you had found some critical piece of truth that contradicts the battle plan, what would be your next move?

~~~~~~~~~~

As for me, I feel like the narrator of this story might as well be Nathan himself, and that he is pointing his finger in my face saying, “You are that man!” Well, in this particular case, that realization doesn’t scare me, because up to this point in the story, Crowe has only put himself in danger. I guess I can live with that. Although I trusted others to point me in the right direction, I have to acknowledge that I enlisted voluntarily, and in the end it was my own decision to make.

As illustrated by a bit of digital alteration in the recruitment poster above, confronting those who possess your life-long trust is perhaps more formidable than facing a sergeant you barely know who barks out orders. I feel like I’ve reached the point of standing up to the commanding officers in questioning the source of the orders I’ve been following; owning the sedition in front of my closest companions, however, may be another story.

Misguided as my orders might have been, I took them seriously at the time and can perhaps claim to have been a pawn in someone else’s battle until now. But once I choose one of the above endings for myself, once I leave that command bunker, the implications of my next choice become much more consequential. If I, for example, decide to propagate a façade and keep the real truth from my own platoon as they storm past me up the ladder, blowing my own whistle and commanding my own men to shoot any deserters for their corwardice…if I am then told that I am that man, now that scares the hell out of me!

What if I decide to stop the charade and promote the truth about the maps? Looking at others who have done the same, surprisingly, exposing the errors doesn’t actually seem to do any good. There might be a deserter here or there, but most of the troops tend to remain loyally locked in the stalemated battle, even those who realize the maps are wrong. They have been told that anyone like me who thinks they might have seen a mistake in the maps, even an admitted mistake, is only looking at one little snippet of the field. The general, on the other hand, has flown overhead and has a complete map that is entirely correct. If he gave you a map that is wrong, it is right to follow that map, because he knows what he’s doing. Perhaps he needs you to follow that map and sacrifice your own little regiment as a diversion so that the full army battalion can invade from their strategically selected, surprise position. If you blow the whistle on the diversion, you’ll be undermining the whole battle plan and should get hanged for treason. So fall in line, soldier!

Is that a possibility here? Sure, “stratagem” might be a thing. I may find out I’ve been wrong with all of this and go down as a traitor; but I saw my patriotic duty as a search for the truth. I’m not claiming to know the answers to any of these questions; the only thing I know is who I’ve been so far in this open-ended story. And with my kids lined up and heading for the ladder, I don’t have much time to debate which of the endings to choose. Am I a whistle blower? Or am I a whistle-blower?

| Next: Chapter 4 Part 2: Gallipoli |