“Never better, Padre. Yourself?”
“Care to join us for a hand?”
“Yes, come, Capitano, play a hand, have-a some wine,” entreats Mr. Ceci.
“I think that he has had quite enough of that,” says Gordon sniffingly, though not without a trace of humour.
“I think that you could use some of that, Gordon. It would loosen you up.”
“Careful now, McFarlane. Let us settle this like gentlemen. I think that in your state I could clean you out handily. What do you think, Padre?”
“I think Major Gordon has a bone to pick with you. Join us for a game, if you will.”
“No thank you Padre, I think I’d like to get out for a bit.”
“Understood.”
After a moment’s pause, Jim dismisses himself with a perfunctory, “Gentlemen.” Out into the street. Soldiers mill around in the darkness, shining flashlights to get around, bumping into each other, joking, drinking, smoking. A flash in the sky from distant artillery. The wine is going straight to his head.
“Sir, that’s quite a story.”
“What? What’sss quite a story?” Leaning over on the curb, he feels nauseous. He tries to stand on rubbery legs, but his legs give out as though he were a foal trying to take its first steps and he teeters over into the arms of the two men.
“Careful, sir, I think we’ll have to help you back.”
“What? What’sss wrong?”
“You’ve been drinking with us for too long, it’s time to go back to your billet. You can hardly stand.”
“Huh?”
“And you smoked all of our cigarettes, too. We need to cadge some more.”
“No fucking way! I’m ssstaying here!” He tries to stand again, and he wobbles about on bandied legs, breaking free from their grasp. “You hear me? I’m staying put, right here!” he shouts in the ragged ends of his voice. “Wanna go home! Wanna fuck my wife! Make loooove! My cock is limp, I cannot fuck! The nitrate it has changed my luck!”
“Sir, come with us.” One of their hands reaches out to hold him, and he spins around and lands a punch square in the man’s cheekbone. The soldier drops down, out cold.
“Hey!” yells the other, who takes a swing at Jim.
“What’s going on!” The blast of a whistle. “Halt!” Two shadowy figures emerge from down the winding lane. Provosts.
“Everything here okay?” one of them asks.
“This captain here’s been with us for over an hour. Drunk out of his skull. Crying over his wife who doesn’t write him letters or something. We tried to get him back to his billet, then he knocked my buddy out cold, just like that!” He emphasizes the force of Jim’s punch with a click of the tongue.
Jim sits down, knees up, and puts his hands on the side of his head.
“Right, okay, I see what’s happening here. Come on with us Captain, let’s dry you out.”
“Sir? Sir, is that you?” Another voice, a familiar voice. “Sir? I’ve been looking for you.” A hand on his shoulder. He turns wanly to see Cooley looking over him.
“You know him?” asks one of the military policemen.
“Yes, he’s my CO. I’m his batman.”
“He just hit a soldier, and he’s publicly drunk. He’s in for a bit of a wakeup call. A drunken officer punching an enlisted man … makes for an interesting night.”
At this, Jim moans into his hands. “What have I done? Christ … ” he whimpers. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry … ” He looks up to see Cooley speaking quietly with the provosts, lots of nodding, gesturing, bargaining. The irate soldier has calmed somewhat, and is slapping his comrade in the face lightly and is shaking him, trying to revive him. The unconscious man comes to, eyes fluttering and then focusing, and he props himself up onto his elbows, looking about with a dazed and groggy expression on his face.
“Can you get your buddy back okay?” asks one of the provosts.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“We can handle it from here.” The provost goes back to speaking with Cooley. The two soldiers leave, and Jim mutters “Sorry,” to them, though it is doubtful that they hear him. After about ten seconds, the provosts leave, and one of them says over his shoulder, “You take care of yourself, Captain.”
Cooley approaches and pulls him to his feet. “Come on, let’s get you back to the mess. As you are a wreck, sir.”
“What did you do?” he asks in a slur punctuated by a hiccup.
“I offered them your last two bottles of rye from your kitbag. They’ll meet me back at the kit storage in about twenty minutes. Sorry, sir. I had to do something.”
“Ss’ okay,” he says, staggering, supported by Cooley.
“Now, I think you owe me a favour for once.”
17
“No. 12 Platoon, slope … ARMS! No. 12 Platoon, open or-DER … MARCH!”
Selected as an officer candidate, he found himself polishing boots and buttons, pressing tunics and pants, marching and doing drill, and on training weekends, making and remaking beds, as the training sergeants barked ragged orders into his ears. Every night he marched back home to Marianne, now looking trim and fit in his uniform, and he would take her out on pay day for a steak dinner and maybe some dancing. She did like the uniform—that at least partly won her over, the first time he went home in it—“Well Jim McFarlane, if by joining up you meant you’d be wearing this I might’ve had an easier time with it! Come here, soldier, let me help you loosen that belt … ” But damn it all if there wasn’t still tension under the surface. He was going to be shipped out and she knew it.
One day, a month after being selected for officer training, he received a letter from his university buddy and football teammate, John Barrett, in response to one he sent a month earlier:
Dear Jim—
Good to hear you’ve signed up! Me, I’m now in the First Battalion of the Canadian Irish Rifles. Currently I live in the Fort York Armoury in Toronto, not too far from the waterfront. All is fine and dandy here, and with training and the like, my days are quite busy. I was commissioned not too long ago—I must say I like being an officer. I’m not sure if I qualify as a gentleman yet, but I bought a spiffy new suit from the Tip Top tailor factory near the armoury after my last pay day, and that should help make up for my myriad shortcomings. I’ll be damned if I don’t wow the ladies with that or my dress uniform. You know, this is a fine regiment that I am in. The spirit is high, the laughs are many, and everybody is itching to get over there and get their licks in before it’s all over and done with. You know, I may be able to put a word into our CO or the recruiting officer to see if maybe you could get transferred. People get changed between units all the time, I’m sure we could think of something …
Jim wasted no time in putting in a request for a transfer, going so far as to bribe his colonel with his liquor ration before he even mentioned to Marianne that he was mulling over the possibility of switching units. And so, by virtue of a bureaucratic stroke of the pen, ink being the lifeblood of governmental decisions, he was transferred to the 2nd Battalion of the Canadian Irish Rifles, based out of Toronto. After a month there, he was transferred to the 1st Battalion stationed at Camp Borden north of Toronto, and from here, everywhere—Alberta, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, England, Italy.
On the eve of his departure to Toronto, they walked down the street from the movie theatre toward the parked car outlined among others along the curb in the streetlamp glow, silent save for their steps; his, hushed and soft-soled, hers a standoffish clicking of heels. The movie was Gaslight starring Anton Wallbrook and Diana Wynyard, about a British heiress under the menacing thrall of her husband. That rough plot sketch was about all he’d gotten from it; he had been too distracted the whole time, twitching in his seat, mulling over his leaving tomorrow. She, too, had seemed distracted, but she’d stayed still much of the time, her index finger pressed pensi
vely in the hollow of her lower lip, chin rested on the rest of her fingers, elbow propped up on the armrest of her chair, holding her poise as she often did when perturbed.
She was the first to speak. “So, I guess this is it then, isn’t it. You’re out of here tomorrow, and I won’t see you for a long time.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true.” He reached out and touched her shoulder.
“Oh?” She stopped and turned to him. “I won’t be seeing you very often. With you stationed over there and wherever else afterward, I’ll see you maybe once a month. That’s going to be very, very hard, you know that.”
“Look, it’s not going to be too hard for me to wrangle a forty-eight or seventy-two hour furlough every once in a while. Occasionally, I’ll probably get a week. And as we discussed before, you can also come visit me. I can get you discount tickets, no problem. I’m told one of the guys in the new unit, his brother works for the railway. I’ll bet we can see each other every other weekend if we work at it.”
After a moment of simmering silence: “Let’s just go, shall we?” Her voice was mumbly, weighted down with an irritable resignation. “It’s late, and I have to wake up early tomorrow.” They made their way to the car and drove home, barely speaking all the way. Later, in bed, after another loaded silence, after he had turned the bedside lamp out, she leaned over to him and whispered very tenderly into his ear, “I still love you, you know. I love you, I hope you know that I do … despite all this.” She put her hand softly on his shoulder, and he turned to her and looked into her wide and watery eyes. He stroked her hair, moved a spiral strand out of the way of her face and softly rubbed her temple. She cooed softly as he did so.
“I promise I will be true to you. And the moment I get leave, I will be back here to visit you, I assure you. I will visit every chance I get.”
“You’d better, Jim McFarlane, because if you don’t, I’m coming to your base to give you a stern dressing down in front of all your men.” She smiled, albeit sadly. “I assure you that.”
“Oh, really? A dressing down? I think that we’ve both dressed down after a fashion, and it’s incumbent on us to make the most of it.”
“Not now,” she said, softly touching the side of his face to gently keep him away. “Not just yet. Let’s just talk a while.”
“Okay,” he said, disappointed and uncertain as how to handle the moment. “What should we talk about?”
“Something else.” She smiled. It was a deep, warm smile. She reached out and put her hand in his, squeezing softly and then allowing his fingers to surround hers, letting herself be taken into the firm embrace of his grasp. “We got married a number of months ago,” she started, leading into her thoughts. “Just over a year. We got married at a very bleak time … for the world, I mean. And now you’re going off to war, and I understand that, I really do, and … ”
“And … ?”
“Well, remember when we used to have those long talks when walking along the river?”
“I remember,” he said with a light chuckle. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well, on a few of those walks we discussed having children. We agreed to wait a bit, to try to have maybe a couple years for ourselves, if possible, and, well … ”
“I think I know where this is going,” he said.
She winced slightly, hurt. “Where did you think I was going with that?”
“I think that you were going to ask if we could try to have a baby now.”
She looked at him long and hard. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. But not quite, Jim. It’s not the right time. Literally.” She sounded sarcastic.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” He looked her in the eyes and carefully considered his words. “But do you think it’s wise to try and have a baby whenever I’m on leave and the timing’s right? Really? I mean, with me gone, how can I be of any help?”
“Well, you can help by sending money home,” she said. “That would be a start.”
“It is a good idea, Marianne. Just not yet.”
She was silent a minute. “We used to plan together a lot on those walks,” she said softly. “We did a lot of things together.” She lay awhile, collecting her thoughts in the silence as he held her hand and stroked her fingers, and she looked him in the eyes. “But you’ve seemed really restless since we got married.”
“Hm? How so?”
“You suddenly seemed to put everything into question. Right up till we married, you and I seemed to really see the world in the same way, to act in unison. You’re a number of years older than me; I would have figured you’d have gotten some of that restlessness out of you by the time we met. Hadn’t you?” She fixed her gaze on his, her eyes tender yet probing.
He hesitated before speaking. “Well, yes,” he answered in a near whisper. “Yes and no, I guess. When I left university I really didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t follow my dad into medical school because I really have no interest in it. So I dabbled here, I dabbled there. I got the job at Ashton, and it’s gone well enough, I guess … I guess … but, in the army I feel I have found my place, my purpose. I really do.” He smiled.
“I just worry for your safety.”
“As do I.”
“If we started trying for a baby before you left for good …”
“Again, Marianne, it’s not a good idea. Not yet.” He continued. “If, and I mean if, the worst happens to me when I go, I would leave you unsupported with a baby. Think of it that way. Just think of it that way, please.”
Her reply was long in coming. He continued stroking her hand as she composed her response in contemplative silence. “I understand,” is all she said after a while, a tear streaking down her cheek. “I understand.”
18
Too many cigarettes last night. Jesus. He breathes in and his lungs reluctantly inflate themselves with a laboured sighing wheeze, glued together as they are with his own sooty phlegm. His air passages feel burnt, as though a frayed rope were pulled up from his lungs and out through his mouth, rubbing raw the sensitive tissues of his mucous membranes all the way up. Phlegm pools in the back of his throat, having risen like watery slag from the bituminous catacombs of his lungs. He clears his throat and spits a grey-green sooty wad into a tissue, and examines the clot of sputum, flecked and streaked with blood, and he compresses the tissue and stuffs it into the bedside wine bottle, now requisitioned not only as an ashtray, but also a spittoon. The ingenuity of the modern fighting man. Mom would not be very pleased, Marianne less so. Goddamn, my knuckles hurt. Must’ve hit something last night—or someone? After a slug of water from his bedside canteen, he feels ready to confront the task at hand: appearing not to be too hungover at breakfast. Good as new. Time for a cig. He lights up a smoke. With his first deep caustic inspiration of smoke, he paradoxically feels clearer, aided by a rush of nicotine-triggered euphoria. He complements the drag with a slurp from the bottle of Canadian Club standing at attention by his bedside. It is already a quarter drunk. Thank you Dad for the prescription. Well, onward Christian soldier—
Breakfast is a veritable feast: bacon, ham, scrambled eggs, toast with jam, hash browns, orange juice, tea, coffee, as much as you want, sir, eat up, enjoy, tonight we’re going in, this is it, back in to take the damn ridge that’s held up our otherwise textbook advance, the Brits couldn’t do it so it’s up to us, yes, should be a piece of cake once the arty and air force flatten it all and leave us with nothing to do, yessiree, just picking through the rubble, sounds good to me, I hate it when they shoot back. As he eats in the mess, he finds himself for a while talking to no one, the bleary morning chatter about him largely banal, last night’s festivities casting a heavy hangover shadow over the morning: slurp, chew, looks like it’s gonna be a warm one today, yuh, yuh, let’s get in a couple hands of poker before we roll, are you in Riordan? We move in at what time again exactly? I hope the newbies
are up to it, hope the RSM whupped them into shape, hope I’ll have time to visit Chelsea at the hospital today before we go and give her a goodbye kiss, she gets so bloody worried, can you blame her? Only the padre and Gordon seem bright, teetotallers that they are, chatting together in a considerably more buoyant manner than most of the others—
“The eggs are rubbery.”
“The eggs are always rubbery,” answers Barrett, pensively examining the yellowed clot of scrambled egg on the end of the fork, turning it, face set in mock suspicion. “That’s where the army puts its surplus rubber—they just mix it in with the eggs, stretch ‘em out as far as they’ll go.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if they did.”
“You should see what they do to the meat.”
“I’d rather not, thank you, Barrett.”
“These eggs, they are shit,” Leprenniere adds with his customary trace of an accent. “How they feed such rubbish to us sometimes is a mystery. Cannot Riordan get his hands on anything better than this crap?” A breeze billows the flaps of the mess tent, bringing with it a damp swampy odour of rotting vegetation and mud. The damn rains. Falling on the plains. Not only in Spain, he thinks. The rain has been pouring hard on their bivouac area for two days straight now, has turned the fields into muck. The sodden training exercises yesterday, slithering through the chilly muck, splashed by that goddamn tank full of laughing jackasses, the treads turning up muck like a water wheel, Christ almighty, who’d a’ thought that Italy could be this miserable? Clearly the elements have been sympathizing with the Fascists.
“It’s not the eggs, it’s the preparation,” Barrett corrects Leprenniere. “Shoot the cook, not the provider, perhaps some poor Eyetie farmer in need of a buck or two. Or your good old stout Canadian farmer, producing for victory.”
“Hear hear!” Leprenniere slams his fist on the table in hearty agreement. “Are you two in for a game tonight?”
“Sure, why not,” offers Jim with a genial yawn. “Around here?”
Beckoning War Page 15