Letters Across the Sea

by Genevieve Graham

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, then we were on our own at the camp. We had nowhere else to go. We painted the roofs with the letters PW and hoped the Americans would find us, which they did, within a week. It took them about a month to get ships to a nearby port to pick us up, but by then, the food parcels had changed everything for us.”

  “Because they meant freedom,” I said, searching his face.

  He took in what I’d said, then he nodded slowly. “Yeah. They meant we were going home. After four years of surviving, we were finally getting the chance to live again.”

  Beside me, Ian cleared his throat, ready to ask another question, but I dropped a hand onto his leg to stop him. I knew how much he wanted Max to talk about Christmas Day, and how much I needed to know about Richie, but this wasn’t about us. We couldn’t push him. Max had told us about things that, no matter how clearly he painted the picture, we couldn’t imagine. Like my brothers, he was scarred inside and out. But at least he was meeting my eyes now. He was trusting me again. I would go as slowly as he needed me to go.

  He finished his second bowl, and the bread was long gone.

  “How about we call it a day? We can come back tomorrow—you looked like you enjoyed the soup.”

  He smiled, slow but with a hint of confidence. “Yeah. It’s pretty good. Tomorrow is fine with me.”

  * * *

  I met Max almost every day, sometimes alone, sometimes with Ian. It was always at the Senator out of habit, and the waitresses started leaving a booth open for us. Until he changed his order, they automatically brought Max two bowls of soup every time. I wondered if they were doing it because they knew he was a veteran. That he’d offered his life for theirs. I hoped so.

  Max had good days and bad ones. On the good ones, he talked on and on. On the bad ones he basically stared into his hands. The ashtray was almost always alarmingly full. The first time I tried to nudge him out of a daze, he looked at me like he didn’t recognize me at all, then he’d simply left the restaurant. It reminded me of Jimmy’s terse exit from our family dinner, though Max hadn’t seemed angry, just confused. I learned not to press him when he was in one of his moods. But over time, he became more and more willing to talk, and the bad days were fewer in between.

  At the end of one of our lunches, when it was just the two of us there, Max asked about my brothers. He sagged a little bit, hearing about Liam and Mark.

  “It’s Jimmy I’m really worried about though,” I said, filling him in on all that had happened.

  “Jimmy’s a fighter,” he said. “He’ll pull through.”

  “How are you adjusting to being back? In your head, I mean.”

  After his first night at home, Hannah had called me, letting me know about his strange behaviour. She’d assured me he would recover, and I loved her for believing it. But no one knew what would happen with any of our brothers.

  “I’m trying.” He stubbed out his ever-present cigarette. “When I was in Newfoundland, then for a little while in Hong Kong, Hannah would write to me all the time, telling me stories about her kids. Used to break my heart, knowing I was missing so much of their childhood. Then, after we were in the camp, the letters stopped, and I started to accept that I might never see them again. I promised myself that if I ever did make it back, I’d be better than what I was. I’d be a better brother and uncle, and I’d be a better son.” He nodded. “I’m trying. I’m trying to live.”

  But our conversations about family never went further than that. He still hadn’t brought up Richie, and I was hesitant to ask. I didn’t want to ruin the fragile bond we’d established.

  One day, when he was telling Ian and me about working in the mines, I noticed him rubbing his wrists.

  “What are you thinking right now?” I asked.

  He lifted his hands, turning them so he could see his palms, then the backs. “I was thinking how strange it is not to have shackles on my wrists anymore. How unfamiliar I am with the concept of freedom. Freedom was something I took for granted all my life. I promise you, I never will again. No more barbed wire or ropes or chains. No more biting down on every single thing I want to say, knowing I was risking my life by saying it.” He paused. “No more wishing that someone would either rescue me or kill me.”

  I’d never get used to this, I realized. The pain they’d inflicted on him, the way they’d reduced him in so many ways. “You never should have had to go through any of that. None of you should. Someone needs to make it up to you somehow.”

  “Not possible,” Max said.

  Ian nodded. “There’ll be a compensation package, I imagine.”

  Max smiled. “There you go, Moll. Your next research project.”

  It was an innocent suggestion, but I felt Ian stiffen beside me. The past few weeks had been full of many intensely personal moments for Max. He’d told us almost everything about his experience in Hong Kong and Japan, but once in a while a comment or memory would slip out that made it clear we’d always been close. Nothing romantic was ever hinted at, just a very deep, lifelong friendship. Sometimes I wondered how much Ian noticed, and what he was thinking, but he never said anything.

  The end of the year was drawing near. With everything else going on, December had snuck up on us, and our wedding would be here before we knew it. Ian had booked the church for Christmas Day, my mother had helped me sew my dress, and Hannah had agreed to be my maid of honour. Everything was ready to go.

  Our interviews with Max were drawing to a close, which had to happen eventually, but I’d chosen to ignore that. I could have talked with him forever. One day, when Ian couldn’t come, I decided to do something special for Max, as a thank-you. I called ahead and asked the Senator to serve him a dessert I had made myself. When the waitress brought it to the table, she set the plate in front of Max, and he stared in amazement.

  “Is that rugelach?” he asked. “That’s not on the menu.”

  The waitress smiled, in on the surprise. “Your girlfriend made them. She said you loved them as kids.”

  My face burned, but Max didn’t correct the waitress. Instead, he reached for one. “You remembered.”

  “I remember everything, Max,” I replied.

  Our eyes met, and neither of us looked away. It was impossible not to know what he was thinking about, because I was thinking about that summer, too. On impulse, I reached across the table to take his hand, but my gold ring shone in the light, and he pulled away.

  twenty-five MAX

  Max knocked on the door of Ian’s house, then shifted in the cold. It seemed his leg hurt more in the winter, and his limp was acting up. While he waited, he reached into his pocket, checking for the letter he’d tucked in there before coming. Tonight was the night. He’d waited long enough.

  A week after Molly had made him rugelach, she had called him and asked if he could come for dinner at Ian’s house instead of lunch at the Senator. From the tone of her voice, he couldn’t tell if it was her idea or Ian’s, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Sometimes Max wondered about Ian, and what he thought about all the time he and Molly had been spending alone together, but Ian had never complained. Lately, though, Max had caught something in Ian’s expression that clearly said he wasn’t comfortable with the whole situation anymore.

  Molly was thrilled with everything they’d been doing. She said her editor was very happy with how the series was coming along, and that she’d be adding research from other sources so it would be a well-rounded piece. She positively glowed when she talked about it. Despite the memories the interviews dug up, Max would’ve continued doing them for as long as she wanted, just to see her happy. But it was one week before Christmas. Their time was running out.

  He knocked again, and the door swung open. “Max,” Ian said, smiling broadly and stepping aside so Max could enter. “You made it. Thanks for coming out this way for a change.”

  He took Max’s coat and hat then ushered him through to the dining room where the smells of home hit him.
Molly was there, her long hair drawn partly back by a light blue bow that matched her dress. She was beautiful. But then, she was Molly. She’d always been beautiful.

  He stepped closer, checking the steaming bowls already on the table. “Is that goulash?”

  She grinned. “I thought you might like something warm to counter the bitter cold outside. And you can have as many seconds as you like.”

  Ian pulled out the chair at the head of the table and gestured toward them. “Let’s eat before it gets cold!”

  Molly nodded at Max, suggesting he take the spot to Ian’s left, then she claimed the chair across from Max. Her eyes were on him as he eased himself down, always careful not to bump his leg. She smiled, watching his reaction as he took his first taste.

  “This is delicious, Moll,” Max said, and it was. “Tastes like home.”

  Her face lit with the compliment. “I did learn this recipe in your mother’s kitchen,” she reminded him.

  “Mama would be proud of you. I’ll tell her.”

  “Yes, really good, sweetheart,” Ian said, then he looked over at Max. “So about tonight,” he said. “Since we’re getting close to Christmas and all, I’m wondering if we could talk about Stanley Village. I think it’s the final piece of the puzzle.”

  She shot him a look. “We talked about this. It doesn’t have to be the final piece.”

  Ian reached for her hand. “One week left, Molly. It’s time to put this article to bed.”

  Her gaze flickered to his own. The subject of their wedding had hardly been mentioned until recently, at least not during the interviews, and it felt a bit like a slap, being reminded of it that way. A couple of days ago he’d been sitting on Hannah’s stairs while Dinah ran up and down them, fascinated by the “Slinky” Max had bought for her, and he’d brought up the subject of the wedding with his sister. He’d tried to keep his personal feelings out of the conversation, but she always saw right through him.

  “He does dote on her, Max,” she’d said, leaning against the bannister at the base of the stairs. “And Molly seems happy.”

  “She does,” he allowed.

  “Listen, Max. I warned you once before to be careful around her, and I’m going to warn you again, but not for the reason you think.” She shook her head sadly. “You both have been through way too much. I’m not sure either of you could survive having your heart broken again.”

  She was right, of course. Even if Molly changed her mind about Ian and stepped over that line with Max, they could never be together. But it was so hard to think of her married to another man. To imagine Molly and Ian standing before a minister together, then to imagine them after the wedding. Whenever he allowed his mind to wander in that direction, it hurt.

  Molly was holding up a spoonful of goulash and watching him. “He’s right, you know. Stanley Village is the one thing we haven’t talked about. Are you ready to talk about it?”

  No, he wasn’t. If he had a choice, Max would never again return to that battlefield or to any other thought from that day. Christmas 1941 had been the worst day of his life, until the camps. But if Molly wanted to go there, and of course she did, he would tell her everything she needed to know. Even if it broke her heart.

  “Sure, Moll.”

  “Okay then,” Ian said, producing his notepad and pen.

  Molly scowled. “Ian, slow down. What’s the rush?”

  “It’s okay, Molly,” Max said.

  Ian flipped through his pages. “Before we actually get to Stanley Village, I wanted to ask you about some concerning reports coming out about the Battle of Hong Kong. It sounds like the Canadians were woefully underprepared and lacking in proper weapons. Was that your experience?”

  Instantly, Max found himself crouched in the dark jungle, the cold of that night at Lye Mun hardened in his bones. Panic clogged his veins once more. The Japanese were coming. They were almost there.

  All Max had to do was close his eyes, and he could see his friends beside him, huddled in the trench. He saw Richie’s confident nod. He felt Arnie tucking the grenade into Max’s frozen fingers because he didn’t know how to use it. Then he heard it again: the shrieking battle cry as the Japanese exploded from the water. In his mind, Max ducked beneath the orange flares of gunfire, cutting through smoke already raised by artillery explosions. Retreat! Retreat! And he fled with David and Arnie, Richie somewhere nearby, racing for the trees, for the rendezvous, then David screaming, “What do I do?” after the bullet sheared through Max’s leg. Then David had gone, and Max looked down, down, down, diving toward the bloodshot blue eyes of Richie, mutilated, paralyzed, helpless.

  He opened his eyes. Molly was watching him, waiting. How was he ever going to admit to her what he’d done?

  He turned to Ian. “We were never trained for battle. We never should have been there. What are you hearing?”

  Ian rattled off the basics: almost two thousand Canadians vastly outnumbered by over fifty thousand hardened, veteran Japanese forces with far superior firepower and training.

  Max listened, confused. Ian’s expression and tone were respectful, but what he was describing sounded so black-and-white to Max. Where was the cloying, coppery stink of blood? Where were the screams of men cut short as their throats were slit? Where was the terror of that relentless, starving, exhausting two weeks of hell in the mountains?

  Ian hesitated. “There’s a story going around that the Canadian troops broke and ran during the battle.”

  Max stared, aghast. “That’s a damn lie.” He hated that his voice shook, but his body vibrated with anger at the assumption. “Nobody ran. Nobody broke. We were outnumbered fifty to one, and we gave as good as we got. I can tell you without any reservation that I was proud to be a Canadian in Hong Kong. Nobody could have been more courageous than our men. Who the hell is saying that?”

  Ian didn’t answer, but his pen was busy.

  “That’s why your story is so important, Max,” Molly said gently. “People need to know the truth.”

  Ian looked up from his notepad. “Let’s move on. Christmas Day, Stanley Village.”

  Max took a deep breath. Molly was right. If someone was claiming his men were cowards, this was his chance to set the record straight, even if revisiting it killed him.

  “On Christmas Day, we went in knowing we were going to die,” he started, reluctantly letting his mind drift back. “There were only one hundred and twenty of us left in D Company, and they’d told us there were only a few Japanese in the village. Fifteen, someone had said. But they’d lied. There were hundreds of them, and they had all the ammo in the world. We rushed in, making all the noise we could, and somehow we got past the initial guard. David, Arnie, and I just kept running. We couldn’t believe it. We felt invincible, euphoric, as though we might actually make it.” His smile faded. “But we should never have been so confident. When the Japanese pulled themselves together, it was more than just seeing them assemble, it was like feeling a force of nature swelling against us. The world blew up around us, shaking the ground so hard that men were knocked over. I saw some blown in half. I saw them cut apart by shrapnel and bayonets. I saw so many things that day.” He rubbed his forehead hard, pushing the memories out. “We never had a chance. We were forced to retreat, but they kept firing at us. We ran as fast as we could go.”

  David’s face swam in front of his eyes, and he paused, needing to breathe. “David was running right in front of me. He turned to help me, because my leg was bad, and I couldn’t keep up. He was reaching for me, and—”

  He dropped his head into both hands, feeling it all again. The helplessness. The agony in his leg. The knowledge that this, this was it.

  “We can stop,” he heard Molly say from far away.

  “He’s fine,” Ian said tightly. “Probably do him good to get it out.”

  Max bristled at the challenge. He fished for his cigarettes then lit one, inhaling deeply as he squinted across at Ian. He visualized the smoke travelling through his trachea, fl
ooding his lungs, then filling and burning every bronchiole. What did he care? David, Arnie, and Richie were gone. Molly wore Ian Collins’s ring.

  “I can go on,” he assured them calmly, exhaling. His voice had dropped. The armour was back, hard and impenetrable. “If you want me to stop, you’ll have to tell me, because I haven’t talked about this with anyone over the past four years. I might get carried away.”

  “Ian, let’s stop,” Molly said with concern.

  “No,” Max snapped, louder than he’d intended, then he lowered his voice. “People need to know what happened, right? People need to understand we fought with all we had.”

  He looked at them both, noting the pain in Molly’s eyes, then he braced himself and ripped through the barrier.

  “They shot David in the face. He fell, and… I picked him up and tried to carry him off the field.” Even now, he could see David’s face, his open, unseeing eyes. “That’s when they shot me. I dropped, and David’s body rolled away.” He held out his hands, but if he reached out for the rest of his life, he’d never get close enough. “I couldn’t just leave him. I couldn’t. So I started crawling toward him. The next thing I knew, a Jap had his gun on my head, and I raised my hands. Because in that moment, I knew I was about to die.”

  Molly’s fist was pressed against her mouth. Ian was transfixed, his pen hovering over his paper.

  “What happened? Why didn’t he kill you?” she whispered.

  “Turns out the Brits had already surrendered. In fact, they’d surrendered before David had been killed. Stanley Village was all done in vain.” He inhaled, letting the smoke leak through his lips and cloud around him, wishing he could disappear within it. “One hundred and twenty men went out. Twenty-six were killed. Seventy-five wounded. Trust me. I’ve had years to do the math. That’s an eighty-four per cent failure rate.”