A Study in Sherlock

Sergeant-Major Robert Jackson, his back to his students, stared out the seminar room window at the perfectly kept green expanse of the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks. He approved of the order, the regularity. Even so, he could not deny the familiar feeling welling up inside him: boredom. Not that he didn’t like teaching at the Army War College; on the contrary, it was an honor to be here, where the Army boasted “tomorrow’s senior leaders are trained.” It was simply that he could only deal with so much theory. He was a soldier, and a good one, and so always listened for the sound of the guns. Fighting back the ennui, he turned to his class and looked out at the dozen or so captains, sprinkled with two or three lieutenants and one major. Ramrod straight, hair short, khaki uniform unwrinkled, razor-sharp creases, shoes spit-polished, it was impossible to know quite how old he was; perhaps fifty, but too fit to pigeonhole. He wore no ribbons on this day, only jump-master’s wings above his left pocket, Canadian paratrooper wings above the right. On his left shoulder was the screaming eagle patch of the 101st Airborne and on his right the Army College insignia. Now, even as he crossed the short distance to the head of the table, he was every inch the soldier’s soldier. A man who might be soft-spoken, but whose every word was authoritative.

“An officer in the field observing an enemy position applies five criteria: size, shape, shadow, color, and movement. These same elements should be used by a senior officer in any command situation where he is confronted by gaps in his knowledge.” He picked up the remote control for the oversized television monitor on the wall. “You are now, let us say, majors of infantry. Use those five elements to call down artillery on an advancing enemy you know is there, but cannot see.”

With a click of the remote, the monitor sprang to life. It showed a large wooded hillside, that seemed uniform, keeping whoever or whatever it concealed safe from sight. A lieutenant barked out, “Shape!” Jackson froze the frame and the lieutenant continued, “Upper left quadrant, eleven o’clock.” The rest of the class studied the picture; sure enough, trees in that area seemed very boxy. Jackson restarted the image and almost immediately a tank emerged. He clicked again and the hillside imagery reset.

This time, a major called, “Color, lower left, seven o’clock!” Indeed, those trees were just a bit too green, and once the film restarted an artillery piece fired, revealing its camouflage. Jackson again reset and now the answers came quickly.

“Size! Top left, ten o’clock!” offered a triumphant lieutenant who had spotted a pine tree simply too perfect, exposed by a zoom as a radio tower.

The next reset, a captain offered, “Movement, midfield.” A beat for them to realize the bushes there did move differently; quickly, insurgents emerged.

Jackson reset the image but no one had anything to offer. He let it run until, with a sigh, he stopped it. “Problem?” he asked. They seemed cowed, embarrassed—except for the class’s only woman, an attractive captain of perhaps thirty, wearing the insignia of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. She made firm eye contact with Jackson.

“The fifth element is shadow, but this field is overcast, no shadows possible.”

Jackson returned the steady eye contact. “Are you sure, Captain Snow?”

“As sure as I dare be, Sarn’t-Major.”

Jackson stood, returned to the window. It irritated him that she was in his class. He did not deceive himself by thinking it was an accident; she must have known she’d see him every day. Without turning, he answered with an authority intended to remind her who was in charge. “Shadow: verb, transitive. Middle English. From Old English sceaduwe, oblique case of sceadu. But it can be intransitive. Not the shadow you cast, Captain Snow, but the shadow you don’t. Upper left, please, ten o’clock. That copse reflects nothing at all.”

Still without turning, he clicked the remote and the frame zoomed into a comparatively dull patch of foliage, almost a matte finish. He let the zoom continue, finally revealing camouflage net disguising a command post. Another click and the image died. He turned and stared at her.

“Once again, Captain Snow, I remind you the good officer should always dare to be sure but not too sure. So, let us repeat the elements of observation.”

His students almost shouted in perfect unison, “Size! Shape! Shadow! Color! Movement!” He was satisfied. Until the silence was broken. By Captain Maggie Snow.

“Sound!”

The sudden hushed silence left no doubt she had crossed a boundary, her classmates avoiding even looking at her. Flustered, it was clear she wished she could call it back. She looked down at the table, avoiding the ever-placid Jackson who simply smiled slightly.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”