Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey

by Kathleen Rooney

  In that limited and perverted sense, I continued to function as a messenger pigeon.

  * * *

  • • •

  After my communion with the maimed, I felt more exhausted than ever, which mattered not one bit to whoever made my busy schedule. The following day we were traveling as usual, to a public high school in Perth Amboy.

  These propagandizing excursions were always variations on a theme. In a hot gymnasium with squeaking waxed floors or in a hushed auditorium plushed in red velvet, Gault told the story of the Lost Battalion, which I did my best to ignore in the hope of keeping memories at bay. The story he told was largely about me, but it was not my story.

  Then the time came for me to be embraced by the students. I loved them so much, these American children, even the obstreperous ones of middle-school age, even the high-schoolers acting tough. Don’t let them convince you that this was good, or worthwhile, I’d try to tell them, but they couldn’t understand and probably thought that I was just an exceptionally friendly bird.

  In Perth Amboy, Gault tailored his banter to our location, as he always tried to do. Since the school was on Eagle Avenue, he began by saying, “The eagle is the emblem of our proud United States, but it’s the pigeon to whom we owe our present state of liberty.”

  Before I got coddled and patted, a tall and scholarly young man with a mien that reminded me of Whit’s stood to ask, without any hostility, “Can an animal truly be devoted or brave? Or does it just act as it’s been bred to act?”

  Smiling, Gault stepped forward to provide some studied, dismissive answer, but then the gym filled with unintelligible voices, soft but sharp: the student’s peers, taunting him for having the temerity to question this fun new national myth.

  “Now, hold on,” said Gault. “That’s a good question. A real good question.” He stepped back, resting a hand on top of my cage. “If we ask that question about animals,” he said, “then we ought to ask it about men, too. If you think that Colonel Whittlesey was brave—and I do—or that his men were brave—and I do—then I believe you can think the same of Cher Ami. There’s a lot of fancy words we could use to talk about bravery, but I think it comes down to what your teachers would probably call determination and what most of us in the army call pluck. When I was learning about war pigeons, my sergeant told me, ‘No bird will home unless it has plenty of pluck,’ and I endorse his opinion. See, I don’t think it’s the magical ability to navigate—to know where they are and how to get home—that makes these birds special. I think every pigeon has that, even the ones you see on the street. No, what makes our birds special is the plain fact that they’ll do it—no matter the distance, no matter the danger. The men of the Lost Battalion knew they could give up and raise the white flag at any time, but they didn’t. They got through because they had the pluck to stick it out. And Cher Ami isn’t any different. He took his licks and he did his job, a display of pluck that’d be phenomenal in a human being. Now, maybe that kind of pluck comes from good breeding, or good training, or heaven above, or somewhere else. It’s interesting to think about, but in the end I don’t know how much it matters. When you and your buddies are in a pinch and you need pluck to pull you through . . . well, wherever it came from, it’s inside you. It’s your character. This bird’s got it, and I think if we pay attention to their example and stay on the up-and-up, then we’ll have it, too.”

  The auditorium applauded. Gault looked pleased, and surprised at himself. Careworn as I was, I felt touched by his answer.

  In my heart, however, I could feel myself failing, the old wounds paining. On the journey back to Camp Vail, past the pine trees and over the river, I kept imagining myself less as having pluck than as being plucked, feather by feather.

  * * *

  • • •

  It is the nature of a homer to adjust quickly to new surroundings, but I was still surprised to discover how soon I began to feel American, despite my English origins and my fancy—Americans always regarded anything Gallic as fancy—French name. The expeditious mixing of those from diverse backgrounds was something that I admired and still admire about my new country, and as other pigeon veterans arrived who’d served in every theater of the conflict, I found that I could readily connect with them.

  We each had our own way of dealing with our memories, however. As summer approached, I found myself looking backward more than forward, and although I maintained my sociability, those who knew me could tell that something was amiss.

  “You’re not eating, Cher Ami,” said President Wilson one evening when we were momentarily alone. “And these seeds that Gault has brought us are really quite good. Not as sustaining as peas and corn, but a pleasant change. Flavorful. I am imagining myself as a wood pigeon, or a turtledove. Try some.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me,” I said. “I ate earlier.”

  “Earlier? This morning? In France? When earlier?”

  I laughed, a hollow sound that any veteran bird would recognize and respect. “Old friend,” I said, “you and I and all these pigeons have been through hardships, and by them we have been changed. But in my case I fear that these changes have been for the worse.”

  I knew I could count on President Wilson to refrain from pious claptrap. “Human beings,” he said, millet crunching in his beak, “seem powerfully invested in the notion that suffering improves or ennobles the sufferer. This is, of course, childish nonsense. Dishonest and irresponsible.”

  “I was never so airy as my sister Miss America,” I said. “Nor so optimistic as my brother Thomas Hardy. But until the war I always felt delighted to be alive.”

  “The thing to do,” said President Wilson, staring east toward the sea, “is to try to be decent to everyone. It sounds simple, but becomes quite tiring, no?”

  “It is not so easy to be good and kind when one is in constant pain,” I said.

  “I, too, have found this to be the case,” he said.

  We lapsed into silence, grateful not to be suffering alone.

  My sulks grew longer, my temper shorter. And though their bullets were the proximate cause of my pain, I should clarify that I bore no ill will toward the defeated enemy: toward the Germans or, for that matter, toward their birds.

  Late in May, as Camp Vail prepared for Decoration Day, Corporal Gault brought in an Imperial Army pigeon who’d been captured before the Armistice. “In you go, Kaiser,” he said, placing him in the loft. “Time to make some American friends.”

  The other birds hung back, though not because the newcomer was German; they didn’t adopt our keepers’ rampant nationalism any more than I did. Rather, they were circumspect lest his sadness prove catching.

  Kaiser was depressed. I was, too, though I hid it better. For most of my life, the chance to make a positive change, however tiny, had struck me as a gift; by the time I made it to Camp Vail, it seemed almost pointless, as did everything else, but I hoped that behaving as if I still cared might rekindle some warmth in my cooling self—and, failing that, at least make Kaiser feel welcome.

  While contemporary humans insist on deriding us as filthy, we pigeons are fairly meticulous—which is how I knew how badly Kaiser suffered, huddled on his perch, insensate to his own waste. Only a despondent bird would shit on his own feet as Kaiser had done, above the crushed corncob litter. Even in his abject state, he was impressive: slate gray, with a few feathers the pale blue of a mountain pond.

  “Greetings, Kaiser,” I said, the first to approach. “Please make yourself at home here. I like your name, though it’s rather on-the-nose for a German bird, isn’t it?”

  “Your American soldiers gave it to me,” he said. “Very creative.”

  “Fair enough. What’s your real name?”

  “I’d rather not say. If Kaiser is who they want me to be, then what does it matter?”

  “Well, it matters to me,” I said. “But you don’t have to talk ab
out it if you don’t want to. How did you end up here?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. “Germany lost the war, obviously,” he said. “I am the spoils.”

  “What about before the war?”

  His eyes remained fixed on his soiled feet. “I was born in Cologne,” he said. “Son of a long line of racing homers. The Imperial German Army trained me for special missions. The Americans killed my handler and captured my basket during the Battle of the Meuse. Your demobilization was incredibly disorganized. It took them until now to send me here.”

  “I can see why the Signal Corps would want you,” I said, trying to be encouraging without being ingratiating. “You’re a very clever and beautiful bird.”

  At last he looked up, squinting with pained suspicion. “And who are you, if I may ask?” he said. “The elected dignitary of welcoming the pitiable?”

  “I’m Cher Ami,” I said. “I didn’t choose my name either, but I like it, and you can call me that.”

  His eyes widened a bit, revealing vivid red irises. “Of the Lost Battalion?” he said. “I suppose I ought to have known by your injuries, which are quite famous, as is your final mission. A hero bird. Not shamefully captured. Why are you wasting your time talking to a prisoner?”

  I flapped in good humor and then leaned in gently to crush a few mites that I had spotted on his neck. “It doesn’t matter how any of us got here,” I said. “You’re with friends now, if you want to be. You’re able-bodied and a brilliant flier, I’ll bet, by the shape of your wings. You’re going to be okay.”

  From his reaction—an instant of relaxation that became a complete collapse—I gathered that it had been a long time since anyone had told him that. His neck shrank into the cushion of his breast, and he took deep, ragged breaths, each ending in a high quiet note that recalled the sound of a desperate chick. The other birds watched and then began to fly to us, one by one, puffing their feathers and lending their bodies’ warmth. And Kaiser was home.

  * * *

  • • •

  His strength and confidence grew even as my own faded, and he more than repaid our welcome by becoming a source of cheer for all of us. Before long he ended up the mate of Petite Rosette, and they were prolific parents. A happy pigeon couple can raise as many as eighteen babies in a single year, and their descendants went on to great success in competitive races. Some carried messages against the Axis Powers in the next world war.

  Kaiser died in 1949, at thirty-two years of age. In the wild a pigeon lives only about three or four years, but in the relative safety of captivity the average life span is twenty.

  Not for me, though.

  Owing to my battle wounds and the stress of my many appearances for the army, I died when I was little more than two years old, on June 13, 1919, there in the Signal Corps lofts at Camp Vail, New Jersey. One week after Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, which would eventually recognize the right of women to vote. Pigeons do not vote, but as a female being I felt a degree of investment in the fortunes of other females.

  The heartbeat of a healthy pigeon is faster than a human’s, but regular and steady. That early-summer morning, with the wind blowing salty from the Atlantic and the first roses springing open, I felt my pulse slow.

  At the same time, I felt a flutter along my scarred breast where the bullet passed and the vet stitched me. I do not think it overliteral to say that it was the spark of life that all beings possess seeking to leave my body.

  Humans release pigeons—the white ones they call doves—as symbols of hope and loyalty at their weddings and civic ceremonies, and at funerals as representations of the soul’s final journey. But for the most part, the humans who attend such events don’t know what they’re witnessing. Those birds circle dramatically above the scene and vanish, but they don’t simply disappear: they orient themselves in those spirals, and then they fly home.

  I felt my spark of life starting to circle.

  Kaiser and President Wilson alighted by my side, pushing up next to me in the straw where I lay in the loft’s corner.

  “Dear friend,” said President Wilson, “we’ve come to comfort but not to interfere. Go if you must. Your rest has been earned.”

  I could no longer speak, but I was aware and recollecting. Big Tom and Lady Jane. John from Wright Farm. The tobacco-and-hay scent of Bill Cavanaugh’s hands. The anxious face of Charles Whittlesey. The first time I kissed my long-lost Baby Mine, our eyes closed in the fullness of the moment. The hint of white roses at the edge of happiness.

  I felt Kaiser’s beak, quite close to my earhole, whispering.

  “My real name is Pumpernickel,” he said. “I’m grateful that you asked, and I’ll never forget you.”

  In my final living moment, I couldn’t tell if I was laughing or crying.

  * * *

  • • •

  Among pigeons the sound of a pair of wings clapping is a call to action. The noisy departure of a single bird is a kind of nonverbal Let’s go! to the flock. I heard this sound from somewhere, and my spark of life rose on wings of its own to follow.

  In that instant—which had to have been longer—I felt my spark circling, circling, circling, and I expected soon to experience nothing.

  And then I heard the voice. Cher Ami! Home by the airway! Home to your body!

  Flashes flew at me, winking in and out of focus. Withered lips, a face like a wooden carving—the features, I’d soon see, of the taxidermist hired by the Signal Corps to preserve me.

  After a confusing interval of uncertain duration, I became fully conscious again to discover that I had become part of a grand exhibit on the Pigeon Service of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. All my pain had gone, but otherwise my sensations were a general extension of the loss of my leg: my mind would try to move my body, but nothing would happen.

  This paralysis sounds nightmarish, but just as I had lost my locomotion, so, too, had I lost all the bodily drives and impulses that would have made such fixity intolerable. What’s more, my awareness had become quite sharp and no longer tethered to my old perceiving organs; I found that I could simply expand my consciousness to explore my surroundings, permeating them like steam coming off a warm pond. I’ve learned that I can wander quite far and that the voice—the old voice—always calls me back.

  At first I believed myself to be completely alone. I tried to broadcast myself toward birds whom I knew to still be living: President Wilson, Kaiser, Baby Mine. No replies. Then toward birds I knew to be dead: Buck Shot, Thomas Hardy. Silence again. I felt, I realized, a bit as Whit had felt in the Pocket, unsure whether my messages were being received. I wondered whether those I loved were still thinking of me.

  Now they’re all dead, and I no longer wonder.

  Other taxidermied animals, I discovered, could hear and would answer me. As in life my greatest successes were with other domesticated creatures, especially those who’d had a strong emotional engagement with distances and locations: horses, dogs, my fellow homers.

  Ten years passed like a gust of wind, President Wilson appeared next to me in the display case—perched rather impressively by his taxidermist atop two crossed branches—and we picked up where we had left off. When Sergeant Stubby, that brave pup, arrived to join us, we all became fast friends. President Wilson and I are separated now, but I feel certain that some clever curator will one day reunite us, if only for a while. Time stretches infinitely. Death has taught me patience.

  So here I remain, at once a pigeon and a statue. Quite strange when I think about it, but after a hundred years I don’t think about it often. Humans and the multifarious complications of their lives have always fascinated me, and nearly four million of them from all over the world walk through my museum each year. I read them like I once read the weather, attentive to signs: what has changed, what has remained the same, what the future may hold. I keep watching the show.


  CHAPTER 16

  CHARLES WHITTLESEY

  Patriotic parades are for politicians and civilians, not for soldiers, not for pigeons.

  The parade in which the 77th Division marched on May 6, 1919, was a crowd-pleasing concoction, though it did not please me.

  For five straight miles, the crowd stood dozens deep on both sides of Fifth Avenue, drowning out the thumps of our boots with their cheers. The army had replaced the ammunition in a few of our caissons with mounds of spring flowers—a powerfully symbolic gesture, even if insincere—but the crisp air of the morning aggravated my lungs.

  At the end of the route, as the parade was breaking up, I embarrassed myself by asking a corporal from the Signal Corps if I could have Cher Ami.

  I thanked her keeper and hurried away, shaking off the encounter like a punch, nearly running into a tall soldier, a corporal whom I didn’t know.

  Large dark eyes. “Colonel Whittlesey!” he said, his sharp jaw dropping. He looked abashed out of proportion to our near collision. “It’s an honor. Please forgive my clumsiness.”

  The right kind of eye contact can feel tactile, like being physically touched.

  “Not at all,” I said. “The error was entirely mine. Corporal . . . ?”

  “Corporal House,” he said. He had the precise, resonant voice of a college man. “Stephen House. I served with the 305th Field Artillery Regiment.”

  Distracted as I was, I didn’t immediately catch the significance of what he’d said.

  The 305th was the unit that had rained the friendly barrage down on the Pocket.

  I paused. I wasn’t angry—not at the 305th at any rate—since I didn’t blame them for carrying out their orders. Much of the war’s waste and misery arose from the actions of men who sincerely thought they were coming to the rescue.