Tides of Honour

by Genevieve Graham

  There should have been music coming from within, the sounds of fiddles and singing. Every one of their twelve children had learned fiddle, including Jimmy. But three of them had died of pneumonia and Jimmy’s older brother had drowned five years before the war had even begun. So the Mitchells were down to seven children. The next oldest child was seventeen, and she was a daughter, already married. The one blessing the Mitchells could count on was they wouldn’t have to send anyone else to war in the next little while.

  But Jimmy, big, jolly Jimmy, everyone’s best friend, well, he was worth about four.

  Danny stood at the door for a long time, lost in panic and grief. His throat felt thick and his hands shook, slick with rain and sweat. God, Jimmy. This should have been you, bringing my stuff to my family. Not me, damn it. You, Jimmy.

  He couldn’t knock. He couldn’t see them, talk to them, look at them and not see Jimmy. He’d pushed the memories of his best friend to a safe little spot in the back of his mind, shoving them away every time they tried to pop back out. But Jimmy was front and centre now, grinning at him, joshing him about bein’ chicken. I ain’t chicken. I just can’t, Danny told him.

  Danny lowered the sack from his shoulder. He’d leave the box here for them to find. They’d understand.

  But the door opened. How she’d known, Danny would never know, but Mrs. Mitchell was there in that moment, peeking through the door. When she saw Danny her face went white, then red, then she started to cry.

  “Danny! Danny! Oh, my dear Danny! God has brought ye home to me, love. Oh, how I’ve needed ye here with me, Danny! Come in! Come in!”

  She was at least a foot shorter than he, and she’d been rounder before, but she held him tight and they wept together, holding each other up.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Mitchell. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t—”

  “Danny. Danny. I’ve been awake every night since your letter.” She reached up and swept her hands over his cheeks, drying his tears. “Let me see you. Oh, Danny. I’ve been prayin’ for you to come home. I couldn’t bear it, to lose you both. Come in, love, and sit. Come and warm your bones. I’ve such a yearnin’ to hear your voice, lad. I’ve such a need!”

  They went into the sitting room, which was nothing like the Arnolds’, though it too featured a framed photograph of their son in full uniform. Jimmy’s chest was puffed up, his cheeky grin breaking through the serious facade. That’s how Danny wanted to remember him. Not heaving and jerking in Danny’s bloody hands. Not suddenly still, with a tiny black circle cut through the centre of his helmet.

  It was somewhat of a relief not to see Mr. Mitchell there as well. Jimmy had looked a lot like his father, joked the same way. Mr. Mitchell had that same bumping laugh. Danny guessed he was probably out in the shed, most likely, thick hands slick with grease.

  “Oh, look at yer poor leg, child. Look at t’at. What a sin. What a terrible sin. Does it pain ye? Can I get you somet’ing? Oh, dear, dear Danny.”

  Somehow it didn’t bother him when she cooed over him like that, though he couldn’t stand it from his own mother. It was like when he was small, and he took comfort from it. She bustled around him, keeping active, bringing cookies, touching his hair. Jimmy’s had been coal black and straight as straw, but Danny’s was brown, with a slight wave. When she couldn’t think of anything else to do, she sat beside him and tried to hold her hands still in her lap.

  “I brought his things,” Danny said, laying the wooden box on her lap. She stared at it, but her hands clenched the soft white folds of her apron, avoiding the box. “The captain gave it to me when I was in the hospital. It’s for you to keep.”

  She seemed to shrink. Everything but her eyes. They glowed with such sadness Danny wanted to run, to get away from it. But she needed him.

  “You know what, Mrs. Mitchell?” he said. He put his hands over hers, trying to still the tremors—his and hers. “There’s nothing in here that is Jimmy. I mean, sure. There are things, like photographs, notes, they gave us each a Bible, and there’s maybe a lucky coin or something. But the real Jimmy? He’s right there.” He pointed at the photograph. “And he’s in my head.” He put both hands to his ears and pressed hard as emotions swelled inside him, but he was helpless to stop them. “He’s always in my head.” He clenched his teeth and stared at the photograph, blinking hard. “God, I miss him.”

  Mrs. Mitchell placed the box on the chair beside her. This time it was she who reached for Danny’s hands and held on tight.

  “He’s in mine too, Danny. I’ve been missing him and crying over him until I wonder there’s a tear left in me head. But I t’ank God ye’re here, darling. I’m just so glad he sent ye home. When I look at ye, I remember so much laughter, so many times you t’ree caused trouble and made me shake me head wit’ wonder when ye didn’t kill yerselves with some fool game ye played. I see ye floatin’ away in the ol’ bateau, I see ye comin’ in late at night, stinkin’ o’ fish. An’ I see ye all dressed up in your fancy uniforms, all t’ree of ye when you were wit’ Fred. But t’at’s as far as I go.” She squeezed his hands again. “We’ve a job to do now, Danny, you an’ me. We’ve a need to make new memories. I’ll watch ye grow up an’ I’ll wish he was wit’ ye. I’ll watch ye become a good husband an’ father, an’ I’ll wish I could hold my own wee grandchildren on my knee. But first of all, I’ll t’ank God every day that ye came home. Every single day.”

  She leaned forward and kissed his tear-soaked cheek.

  “I miss him so much,” he whispered.

  “As ye should, darlin’. He would’ve missed ye just as much. He loved ye well, my lad. He loved ye well.”

  A while later, Mr. Mitchell came into the room. He still wore a smile reminiscent of his son’s, but it was subdued in comparison. The twinkle in his eyes had faded since Danny’d last seen him, but when Mr. Mitchell’s eyes met those of his wife, it sparked back.

  “Danny, me boy,” he said. Danny stood and reached for a handshake. Mr. Mitchell stepped back in surprise. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, Danny. Where’d you leave your leg, man?”

  “France, sir,” Danny said.

  Mr. Mitchell’s eyes softened. He stepped closer and hugged Danny tightly against him, then he spoke into Danny’s ear.

  “We left a lot of t’ings in France, didn’t we? Terrible trial for us all, t’at war. A terrible, terrible trial. Ah well. We’ll be fine, though, given time. It’s the turning of the tide, son. Nothin’ to be done about it now.” He hesitated a moment, and Danny knew the pain he was trying to bite back. Knew it so well. “But oh, we’re that glad to see ye back, my lad. Welcome home.”

  FOUR

  In the muted hour before daylight, Danny sat at the kitchen table by the oil lamp, a steaming cup of tea warming the palms of his hands. How strange that everything around him was exactly the same as it had been and he was so entirely different. Same creaking board on the floor, same rust stain by the window latch, even the same melody humming through his mother’s lips as she worked around the kitchen. He was the only stranger here.

  He stared into the teacup, losing himself in the soft white swirls as they rose from the heat, condensed on his chin. Now that the brutal shock of being back at home was easing, gentler thoughts had begun to surface. Hints of hope blinking through the clouds. He let himself remember the twinkle of pretty eyes, the quick flash of a shy smile. Audrey. He’d lost his best friends, his leg, and any innocence he might have had as a boy, but he’d found Audrey. She had become the one fixed thing in his life, the buoy he clung to when the blackness of memories lapped at him, threatened to swallow him whole. He loved her—or at least he assumed it was love, since she’d become the most important thing to him. Sometimes he felt slightly guilty when he thought about her. Had God—or whatever it was his father preached about at that pulpit—given her to Danny in exchange for what he’d lost?

  It was five a.m., an
d his father, Johnny, and Thomas were out on the Atlantic, bringing in their catch. All but Danny. He could almost hear their conversations in his head, the hollow voices bouncing off the water as they toiled and teased, the simple, companionable way of men working hard. He envied his brothers the cold slice of the wind against their faces, the rise and fall of the deep swells, the occasional humps of whales gliding by in the summer months. He missed being one of the voices dropping into the fog.

  Now he stayed home with his mother, along with the younger children. The little ones were all still asleep, oblivious to what would someday be their responsibility, but his mother clanged around in the kitchen, clearing up, getting the next meal ready to go. There was always something for her to do. She was a strong woman. He’d never once seen her look weak. No, that wasn’t true. He’d seen it twice: when he’d headed off to war, and when he’d returned.

  “How’s your tea, Danny? Shall I top it up for you?”

  He held up his empty cup, smiling. “Thanks.”

  She took it and filled it, then brought her own over and sat across the table from him. Mother and son eyed each other nervously, then she dove in.

  “How are you feeling, Danny?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Do you want to talk about anything that happened over there?”

  He frowned, his defensive wall rising automatically. “Like what?”

  She blinked quickly, and he knew she’d noticed his swift reaction. Of course she had. She knew him so well. Her fingertips tapped against the side of her teacup. “You don’t have to tell me anything that hurts, Danny. I can only imagine what it was like—we’ve read the papers after all—and I don’t particularly want to know how horrible it was. But was there anything that you enjoyed? Anything at all that made you smile out there? Was every moment terrible?”

  “No,” he said carefully. “It wasn’t all bad.” He caught himself doing the same thing with his fingers as she was doing, then purposefully set them flat on the table. “I made some good friends over there. Of course most of them died,” he said, raising one eyebrow, “but I hope a few are still alive.”

  His mother’s lips drew into a little bow, and she glanced down, drying her hands on the apron covering her lap. “Do they live around here?”

  “Yeah. Halifax. There was Tommy Joyce, for one. He was a good guy. Quality. And Mick was my buddy over there. He’s a newspaper man. Always telling stories.”

  Her smile was heartbreaking. He could see his own pain in her eyes. “I’m glad you had friends,” she said.

  “You had to have friends over there. Otherwise you’d lose your mind.” His voice was cold. He hated taking it out on her, but she was there. She had asked.

  She nodded, and her gaze dropped to the tabletop.

  “The best part of it was getting mail,” he told her, needing to fill the empty space between them. He was nervous about having this kind of conversation, opening up a raw wound all over again, but a part of him wanted to tell his mother everything, let it all spill onto the table so she could clean it up as she always did. “When you sent packages it was a terrific surprise, and hearing the news made such a difference to me over there.”

  “I told your aunts and uncles to write to you. And Johnny did too, didn’t he?”

  “They all did. I really don’t know what I would have done without those letters. It was some lonely out there. Oh, and . . .” He eyed his mother, teasing, daring her to ask.

  “What?”

  “Someone else wrote me letters.”

  “Oh? Who was that?”

  “Her name’s Audrey. Audrey Poulin.”

  His mother clapped her hands together and beamed at him. “You met a girl! Oh, Danny! I’m so happy for you! Tell me all about her!”

  So he did. He explained how the soldiers had stopped to fix her wagon’s broken wheel.

  “Rain was coming, so Audrey invited us to sleep in their barn a few miles off. She and I struck up a conversation. Got to know each other pretty well.” Those eyes twinkling for him, the soft pucker of her lips drawing into a smile, then closing again just before he kissed her . . . “In the morning the battalion had to leave, but she gave me her picture and address, and we started writing. Mom?”

  “Mm-hmm?”

  He hesitated, imagining Audrey’s face. It had blurred slightly in his memory after so long but still hovered there in spirit. He focused on the brown curls that framed her pale face, used them to coax back her sweet smile and the slow blink of her eyes.

  “I fell in love with her. She’s the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met. Beautiful and smart and unafraid. There I was in the darkest place on earth, and she was like the sun.” He beamed at his mother. “So I asked her to marry me.”

  “Danny!” She leapt from her chair and was around the table before he knew it, her arms wrapped around him, her voice ringing with happiness. “Oh, my boy! My baby’s getting married! So tell me more. Is she Canadian? Is she back here now? When will we meet her?”

  He shook his head. “No, she’s not Canadian.” He watched his mother’s reaction closely. “She’s from England.”

  She tried valiantly not to react, but he saw the slight twitch of one eyebrow and steeled himself. He’d known this would be a little difficult. Not so much with his own family, but with the others in the area. Around here, everyone married neighbours.

  “Well, that’s nice,” she said. He could practically see her planning out how to explain this slight complication to Danny’s father. Then she tightened her lips into a smile, making up her mind with a little nod. “And we will all be so happy to meet her. When will she come over?”

  “I think in the spring. We need to raise the money for her transport first.”

  “We’ll have her here before you know it. Oh, Danny! How wonderful!”

  “You’re gonna love her. And she’s gonna love you too.”

  His mother rolled her eyes, primping her hair as if he were a mirror. “Do you really think so? Oh, I’ll have to make sure everything is perfect for her.” Her smile warmed again, sweet as the bread rising in the oven. “But then again, she probably won’t even notice what I do. She’ll just be so happy to be with you it won’t matter. Oh, Danny. I’m so happy for you. Your father will be thrilled.”

  Daniel Sr., as far as Danny knew, didn’t have an emotional bone in his body. The first week he’d been home, his father had said very little, but Danny sometimes caught him staring. His mother was trapped between the two men’s stubborn senses of pride, and Danny could see it was hard on her. She gave her husband nudges, encouraging him to talk with his son, but Daniel Sr. was resistant, and Danny refused to make it easy on him. He was tired of the cold stares and the way his father turned away whenever he limped into the room. He was tired of hearing his father ask Danny’s brothers to do chores Danny used to do. He was tired of the silent scorn.

  A couple of weeks after Danny got home, Daniel Sr. finally broached the subject. Danny’s father had started to build a dinghy, so Danny took it over, deciding he could at least do that, figured maybe he’d feel a little more normal if he was being useful in some way. His father came down to help Danny get organized, and it was slow work, since Danny couldn’t lift what he used to lift. He just didn’t have the balance for it. But he was going to finish what his father had started, no matter how long it took. He always did. When they were done getting ready, they sat on a couple of stools and discovered Danny’s mother had brought them each a lemonade. She’d set it on a table between them.

  “That hits the spot,” Danny said. He set down his glass and glanced around, wanting a smoke to go with his drink. The tobacco can sat on the grass by his father’s feet, so Danny leaned forward to grab a pinch, then he drizzled it down the centre of a small white paper he pulled from his pocket. He licked the edge and twisted the ends closed.

  “Mm-hmm. Sure d
oes,” his father replied, looking anywhere but at his son.

  Daniel Sr. had never been a talkative man. He preferred to give sermons and turn away from unpleasant things. Like his crippled son. Danny let his father sit in the awkward quiet. He didn’t offer anything.

  The older man finally spoke while Danny lit the cigarette. “So, son. How are you finding being at home?”

  Danny took a deep drag from the cigarette and a breeze wafted by, stirring the sparks from the tip. “I like being here just fine, sir.”

  The pause was uncomfortable again, but Danny said nothing. It had taken his father a long time to work up to this. Too long, damn it. The old man hadn’t gone to war. He could suffer a bit.

  “I imagine it’s much different from how you’ve been living the past couple of years.”

  Danny nodded, his mind automatically going to the hungry, sucking trench mud that had swallowed his feet. Both feet. How he’d look down and see nothing below his thighs but sludge. He could still feel the frozen weights connected to those legs, hidden under that filth, and he wondered vaguely what had happened to the one he’d lost. They’d probably left it to rot in the mud. The thick, bloody mud that tripped men, holding them down until they drowned in it. After all, what difference did one man’s leg make?

  “Are you glad to be back?”

  Danny looked at his father and wasn’t sure how he felt. The man had no idea what Danny had seen, what he’d done. He had no images in his mind of death, blood, fire, screaming. All he saw was his son, who’d come home before a lot of other soldiers had.

  When Danny spoke, his voice was shrapnel sharp. “You know I would have stayed if I wasn’t hurt, right? You know I didn’t just come running back with my tail between my legs. Or . . .” He chuckled without a trace of a smile in his eyes. “Pardon me. Behind my leg.”

  Daniel Sr. met his son’s eyes, and the two men stared at each other until something in his father’s expression collapsed. His whole body seemed to sag just a little, and tears shone in his eyes like sunlight off the sea. Danny had never seen his father look like that. He looked much older than his forty-odd years.