The doppelganger

The Trenches are full of tales of doppelgangers and identical twins separated at birth, most of them involving some poor Tommy finding out that the German he’s just shot was somehow his long lost brother.

But the doppelganger who joined our platoon was far more convenient, or so we
thought, for Private Mick Nelson was the very living spit of our hated, malicious Sergeant, one Screaming Simpkins.

A convoluted plot was put in place to break into the sergeant’s billet, suffocate him while he slept and replace him with one of our own.

A contact in central admin was somehow bribed to send us Simpkins’ file, so that Nelson could swat up on his personal history and avoid giving himself away.

The deed was done. Nobody cared about the apparent death of a mere private, so the switch was executed without any hitch or hindrance. The plan had worked and Sergeant Screaming Simpkins would scream and bellow no more.

However, the next day the platoon was hauled up for a bollocking by the new Sergeant Simpkins, who had somehow found out about every misdeed carried out in the trenches in the past month.

The ‘new’ sergeant proved a thousand times worse than his predecessor and the search is on for another doppelganger to take his place.