The Place

by Gary Collins

  “How you do talk, Michael Kelly! ’Tis the same eighth grade as me you’re in. The only difference in your place over the ridge is the teachin’ of Latin. They don’t teach that in our school, and I’m glad of it. I finds ‘proper’ English hard enough to write tests on, let alone Latin, with all of them queer-soundin’ words.”

  “Most everyone calls me Mike, ya know.” He didn’t want to talk about school just now.

  Ruth looked directly at him. “Well, I prefer Michael.”

  “My mother calls me Michael. But then, she’s always tellin’ me she loves me. She kisses me, too!” Michaels’s dark eyes were full of mirth.

  Ruth looked away, her face red. “I didn’t say anything about love or kisses. I just prefer the name Michael to Mike, is all.” She turned back toward Michael but kept her head lowered to hide her blushing.

  Michael changed the subject again, and Ruth’s natural colour returned. “There’ll be a time tonight at the Orangemen’s Hall, fer sure. Will you be going to it, Ruth?”

  “My mom is cookin’ a pot of soup and makin’ grab bags for the time. Of course I’ll be there. Will you?” Now it was time for Ruth’s eyes to light up with mischief.

  “Ha! That’s a good one. Sure, I’ll be there. Where else would a good Catholic boy like me be? I’ll rub down King Billy’s horse, too, while I’m up there.”

  Ruth and Michael laughed together and planned their night rendezvous. They both knew Michael wouldn’t dare show his face at an Orangemen’s time. Just about everyone in the place attended, though. For many citizens, the time held at the Orange Hall was the social highlight of the year. Outside the hall door, Prince, with a high red plume still attached to his head, the saddle still on his sweating back, was tied near a bale of hay he refused to eat.

  The sun was going down, and the people of the Place began the walk up the hill toward the Orange Lodge. Many of the men had steaming pots of soup dangling from their hands. Smartly dressed wives followed, and boisterous children ran all around. The evening breeze snapped the large Orange standard on its pole high above the hall. Accordion music spilled from the open windows, and the very air exuded excitement. The Orangemen were having a time!

  Inside the hall, everything was a wonderful array of activity. Women with aprons draped from neck to ankles tied at the waist, and with brightly coloured bandanas keeping their hair in place, doled out bowls of steaming salt meat soup to all. Long tables were set with cutlery, large cakes draped with multi-coloured icing, fresh loaves of bread with bowls of melted butter, tall tumblers surrounding porcelain jugs filled with water, and the pride of every table—partridgeberry tarts criss-crossed with dainty, sugary strips. Separate from the food was a table laden with small paper grab bags. For five pennies a child could “grab” a bag for a chance to win a special prize.

  In one corner, two men bedecked in the trappings of the Orange Society balanced accordions on their knees, tippling tunes with nimble fingers and keeping time with tapping feet. And around the legs of tables and adults, small children squealed and ran with glee. Abruptly the Master of the Society stepped onto a platform at the back of the hall and shouted, “Order! Order!” The merry din hushed long enough for him to ask the Blessed Saviour to grace the tables and food prepared.

  With the sun long down over the hills behind the community, lamplight dimpled every window in the hall and the strain of music and laughter filled the air outside. And within earshot of the hall, down the shaded lane that led to Ruth’s house on the south side of the harbour, a young Catholic boy waited for his girlfriend to walk home from a celebration he could never take part in.

  Michael heard the clip of Prince’s hooves before he saw them coming. He parted the tangled alder branches and hid beside the lane. Ruth’s father came into view first, leading the horse by a short halter rein. Ruth’s mother walked behind the horse, empty soup pot in hand, her bandana untied and her hair falling loose on her shoulders. Michael barely breathed as they neared his hiding place. Ruth’s father had a pipe in his mouth. Michael could smell the heady tobacco. He could also smell Prince’s sweat. As they drew near, the horse turned its head in Michael’s direction, its long ears twitching. Its low whicker was cut short with a yank of the reins as the trio walked on. Soon they were out of sight around a bend in the lane. Next came the sound of more revellers coming from the lodge, and Michael stayed hidden. Directly below Lodge Hill, the lane separated to follow the shoreline around the north and south sides of the harbour, which were black calm. Most of the people lived on the north side. As Michael watched, a few more walked down the south-side lane. Soon the roadway was empty again. Still Michael didn’t stir from the bush.

  The new moon, with the old one cradled in her silvery arms, appeared with its ashen glow. When he saw the lone figure walking down the south-side lane from the lodge, Michael stepped out of hiding.

  “Good evenin’, Milady Ruth, faithful as your name implies. You came alone and I have been waiting impatiently.” Michael snatched the quiff from his head and made a sweeping motion with it, bowing low as he went up to her side.

  “Michael Kelly, how you do talk!” Ruth was delighted by his manners. In the dusky light she smiled broadly at her suitor. “And I had to lie a bit to the others to get away, and Father told me not to tarry long. I had to give the lassie bun I got in a grab bag to one of the boys who wanted to walk me home.”

  “Which one of the boys was that?”

  “Nate Osmond.”

  “Nate Osmond, whose father is Master of the Orange Lodge?”

  “Yes, he is the one I mean. Always after me, he is. And hates Catholics as much as his father. Maybe more. I didn’t see him following me. You should watch out for him, though. He is evil. Besides, I dare not tarry long.”

  “Nor shall we, my love! We will begin at once and wend our sure way to your bower! No one followed you,” Michael said with another flourish. Taking Ruth’s soft right hand in his strong left, he led her along the road.

  “Only as far as the stile in our fence, and not to my bower, whatever that is,” she warned Michael. “That’s all I need! My father seeing me hand in hand with a Catholic boy, on Orangemen’s Day.”

  “Or any other day, I dare say.” Michael’s voice had lost most of its mirth. He dropped Ruth’s hand long enough to wrap his arm around her waist. “To walk a girl as pretty as you home, though, I’d take that chance and walk you right up to King Billy’s door.”

  He was wonderfully surprised when she didn’t object but said, “Only as far as the stile, Michael.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  They passed a bend in the lane that swung around a deep muddy cove. The tide was in flood, and the calm water gave only a whisper of sound where it lopped up on the landwash on their left. On their right appeared a hollow that sat deeper in shadow than the rest of the lane. A footpath led away from the lane up over the ridge and wound its way to the community where Michael lived.

  “The ridge path will be awful dark and creepy. Won’t you be afraid to walk it all by yourself tonight?”

  “Not a bit, my love! A mile or so of forest trail and a few stumbles in the dark is a price willingly paid to tread lightly down this moonlit path with the girl I love. All the way to the stile, where we will kiss a fond good night.”

  “I don’t know where you get the words, Michael Kelly, but I’ll take ’em. I never said you could kiss me, though.” But she ran her arm around Michael’s waist, and so entwined, they went down the lane without talking.

  “We will kiss each other, my love,” Michael said at length.

  Stopping in the middle of the lane, he drew Ruth to his side and bent down to kiss her warmly. After the kiss, the lovers held each other close, no shadow between them. They reluctantly moved on, still entwined, and came to a steep ladder, commonly called a stile, which led up and over the fence. Sloping away from the fence, a narrow path through the grass
led to the kitchen door of Ruth’s house. Behind the house the harbour water was black and placid. The kitchen window’s curtains were drawn open, and bright lamplight washed over the sill and the grass growing beneath it. For an instant a shadow crossed the light in the window, and Ruth, recognized it as that of her father, who was watching for her. She pushed herself out of Michael’s embrace and climbed up and over the stile, then turned and stood facing Michael, a fence between them. He reached over the fence, and she went between his arms again to steal one last, fleeting kiss.

  “See, Ruth, my heart? Neither a fence of wood nor one of religions will ever separate me from the girl I love. Every beat of my heart merely increases my love for you.”

  Ruth tore herself away and ran toward the lamplight, but not before whispering the words he so wanted to hear. “I love you, too, Michael Kelly.”

  2

  Michael awoke suddenly. Someone had shouted his name and taken him out of his dreams of Ruth. He flung his soggy blanket aside and stood up in the trench that soared high above his head on the shores of Suvla Bay in Gallipoli. Standing in a foot of icy water in a pair of leaky boots, he was fully awake now and wished he were dead.

  “Private Mike Kelly! Where the ’ell are ye?”

  “Here, sir!” Michael’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat and responded again, louder. “I’m here, Sergeant!”

  “On me, Kelly! The major wants to see you, he does. At ’eadquarters. Right now. Nappy time fer ya, is it? Well, ’tis sorry I am fer disturbin’ ya from the bosom of sleep. Or was it the bosom of one of them lusty colony girls ye was in?” The English sergeant laughed in Michael’s face as he approached. Michael saluted him smartly.

  It was a time when men should be sleeping, not standing on bowed duckboards in waterlogged boots and soaked clothing, holding frigid steel rifles that they dared not let go. There was no sky, just a black infinity of night above, broken at moments by bursts of flame from heavy artillery. The crack of sporadic gunfire filled the gap between shellfire. The stabs of light from the lesser guns were closer. The stench of exploding cordite and gunpowder filled a man’s nose and lungs. The earth trembled when the heavy shells came to ground, and soil trickled over the sides of the trenches. The noise, the smell, and the godawful fear of close combat filled the dismal night.

  The sergeant led in a smart tramp without returning Michael’s salute. Filthy water seeped up through the duckboards and runnelled back under the boards as they passed. They manoeuvred around men trying to boil pots of tea over small braziers, and ladders leading up the trench wall with men clinging to them. Michael and his superior walked like this for several minutes. The only sounds from the sergeant were curses he muttered at soldiers who blocked their way.

  A sudden light to their left revealed an opening in the trench wall, and the sergeant led the way to it. The tunnel was several inches above the trench floor and was ankle deep with mud. The passageway opened into a cavernous maul dug out of the earth. Several coal-oil lamps with dirty chimneys warded off the underground darkness. A coal-burning stove, its black funnel disappearing through the earthen ceiling, battled the cold, damp air.

  Two tables, end to end and strewn with maps, papers, tea mugs, and dirty tinware dishes, dominated the cave’s centre. Army cots sat on either side of the table and hard against the cave walls. Surprisingly, the four bunks, with their grey woollen blankets and dirty pillows, were neatly made. Three British officers stood behind the tables smoking cigarettes and poring over maps.

  The sergeant broke the silence. “Private Mike Kelly as ordered, Major, sur!”

  The sergeant briskly snapped to attention two steps away from the table. Michael stood at attention beside him. The three officers were deep in conversation and appeared not to have heard the sergeant. Finally, the major looked up. The sergeant said, “Sur!” and saluted again. Michael followed with a salute of his own.

  “At ease, men.” The major half-saluted with a desultory sweep of his right arm, and the sergeant stepped back. Michael stood at ease, shuffling his rifle: muzzle in line with his right shoulder, the butt on the floor in line with his big toe. The major looked much younger than Michael.

  Rummaging through the mess of papers on the table, the major picked up a file. He flipped through several pages before he found what he was looking for.

  “Michael B. Kelly. Private. Newfoundland Regiment. Born 1877.” The major paused. “Thirty-five years old?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Irish descent?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Catholic, I expect.”

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  “Call you Mike in the colonies, I expect?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A bit old enlisting. For money?”

  “Money is always a factor, sir. Can’t survive without it—especially over here! Experience and adventure mostly, though, sir.”

  “Most soldiers give the standard answer: For King and Country.”

  “I speak my own mind, sir.”

  ”So I see. What does the ‘B’ stand for, Private?”

  “Bligh, sir.” Michael shifted on his feet, knowing what was to follow.

  “Bligh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Unusual name for an Irishman.”

  “Yes, sir. My father was an admirer of Admiral Bligh’s navigational skills, sir.”

  “Quite! So it seems your father passed his love of navigation on to you. Can read the compass, I see.”

  “Yes, sir. Well . . . I can’t scribe the compass rose by rote, as some in our Place, but I manage well enough.”

  “Compass rose? Your place?”

  “The thirty-two points of a ship’s compass, sir. Everyone in Newfoundland calls our communities the Place, sir.”

  “How quaint. To the point, Private. The night flies. Can you do map over compass using . . . as you put it, the compass rose?”

  “The compass rose is almost always associated with ships and charts, sir. Not to be confused with land compass and maps, sir. I can do land compass over maps, sir.” Michael couldn’t believe he had just briefed a British officer concerning the difference between maps and charts.

  “Quite,” was all the major said, though he looked askance at Michael, as if just now accessing him. “We are losing runners, Mike. You know about runners, don’t you, Mike?”

  Michael looked up. The casual use of his name eased him.

  “Yes, sir, I do.” Michael was familiar with the job of running with messages up and down the line of trenches. Almost all of the messages were verbal and memorized verbatim. The men who carried them had to be fleet of foot, possess a good memory, and have the ability to make split decisions. Although the other soldiers jokingly referred to them as errand boys, everyone knew a runner’s job was the most dangerous of all on the front lines. No one stood in line to be a runner.

  The major noticed the change in Mike’s demeanour. “Three runners dead in ten days, Mike. Not a goddamn one of them could tell compass or read map. Big mistake. All three got lost in the night or fog or smoke. Same goddamn thing. And were killed closer to the Turks’ trenches than ours when they were shot. Didn’t know where they were. Couldn’t read compass or map. Must stop. Runners are essential to our operation. A bit old for the job, Mike. Prefer a younger man. Still, we work with what we have, eh wot? Can you still run, Mike?”

  “I—er—yes. I guess I can, sir.”

  “Could order you, but I’m asking. Will you take the position of runner for your sector?”

  Michael knew the dangers. He remembered his old mentor telling him about Pheidippides the Greek, greatest of all runners, who ran the twenty-six miles from Marathon to Athens to joyfully report that the Greeks had claimed victory over the Persians. Michael answered the major without hesitation.

  “Yes sir, I will.”

  The major lo
oked at the sergeant, who was still standing at ease behind Michael. “Dismissed, Sergeant.”

  The sergeant saluted and stepped briskly from the war cave. His heavy tramp gave off hollow thuds between cave and trench. The thump of shells dropping onto the roof above sounded like heavy grass sods. Sifting through the papers on the table again, the major found a grid map penciled with current battle positions indicating trenches, gun formations, and troop movements—both friend and foe. At the top of the map, a bold N indicated north. The bottom left corner of the map showed scale in the Belgian 1:40,000 style. Map in hand, the major crossed the room to a bank of shelves fastened to the wall with wooden dowels. After a brief search he found a red armband and stepped across the room to stand in front of Michael’s. He handed over the dirty band. Michael knew it had been torn from the tunic of the last runner’s dead body.

  “Sew this runner’s band on the left forearm of your tunic,” the major said. “Some call it the Red Badge of Courage. Overrated, that! Just another job to be done, eh wot?”

  With his left hand over Michael’s shoulder, the major led him to the bunk near the cave entrance, the one farthest from the stove. He motioned to Michael to sit on the bunk, and when he did, the major bent down, thrust the map in Michael’s hand, and hissed in his ear, “Keep this map closer to you than ass-wipe, and memorize it till just the touch of your hand on it in the night will show you the way back. Drain your mind of firm breasts and soft women. Make room for messages, strict orders, and map coordinates.” He leaned in so close, Michael could smell the bully beef he had for supper.

  “And if you ever admonish me about bloody compass rose and goddamned maps and charts again, I’ll see that you clean every putrid latrine from Alexandria to Brighton. You understand?”