“Syn-chron-ized they called it, all in step at the same time, stay in line behind that curtain of just fucking steel smashing down, smashing everything into splinters … sandbags, barbwire, concrete blockhouses, and helmets and rifles and mortars and boots and buttons and any poor bugger caught in it – woo-ff – like going up a chimney – woo-ff – don’t move too fast don’t get too close – woo-ff – ‘What happen to Sweeney?’ – woo-ff – ‘Stay in line’ – woo-ff – stopwatch fuckin’ up – woo-ff – other guys not looking, some with hands over their ears – woo-ff – going up the chimney – woo-ff – walking into that barrage – woo-ff – ‘Halt! Fucking halt! – but we’re deaf from the noise – woo-ff – woo-ff – woo-ff –
“ ‘Halt – what?’ … ‘Halt – what?’ … ‘We’ve taken the Ridge.’
“Yeah, yeah, Vimy-fucking-Ridge. I was there. ‘Birth of a Nation’ they called it on TV, but I didn’t see nobody getting born, just a lot of people dying so we could sit there on top of another shithole of mud with Captain Rutherford still pushing for that dso or the mc or the mcb or the ymca with Triangles … just give him a fucking medal, will ya? …
“And that Reverend Amen passing by … ‘It’s been a great day for Canada’ … and somebody yells … think it was me …
Yells.
“Ah, go tell it to Sweeney …
“And then one night, Rummie, he don’t come back from patrol …
“ ‘What happen,’ I said to one of the guys … ‘Where’s Rummie?’
“ ‘Dunno … ’ ‘Is he dead? … ’ ‘Dunno … dunno … ’
“ ‘What the fuck do you mean, you don’t know!’
“ ‘Dunno, Rosie, dunno, ask the Captain.’
“And he’s over there in front of the officer’s dugout getting his tailor-made uniform brushed off … never know when the cameras might show up … getting brushed off by Denny Rivers that suckhole sergeant … knowing we’re watching him, watching him tick off things on his report – tick − ‘Corporal Bates? Anyone seen Corporal Bates?’ – tick − ‘Private Ellison?’ – tick − ‘Private Robidou? Did anyone see exactly what happened to Private Robidou?’ … He loved that fucking word, ‘exactly’ … ‘No one knows what happened to Private Robidou?’ − Tick −
“And I’m thinking, well, he got Rummie but he ain’t gonna get me dead with my name on some fucking plaque somewhere ‘For God, King, and country … ’ Fuck you … that’s one of those dreams I have, that I’m in this park, at the cenotaph, and someone’s got me by the arm and they want me to read what’s written on this long, long list of dead names, dead in the war … and no, I don’t want to read it … no-No-NO …
Rosie takes a breath.
“And I wake up there in the trench, in that blue kind of light and someone’s … shaking me … ‘Rosie … Rosie … ’ ‘What?’ … and it’s … ‘Rummie? … Rummie … It’s you, you’re all here … ’ and ‘Hey, it’s Rummie, he’s back.’ ‘Rummie, hey, Rummie, ya made it back … ’ and now he’s here … and I tells Rummie, … ‘Look,’ I says, ‘next time you’re out there, just take your three-oh-three and shoot the fucker … hey, I’m from the Point and that still makes sense to me … Just shoot the fucker and he’s just dead, that’s all … ’
“ ‘And Rosie,’ he says, ‘Je pense que un jour one day maybe we are going to shoot that Rutherford and h’anybody here trying to make us shoot other people we don’t want to shoot no more who don’t want to shoot h’us. But first, me, I think what we got to do first is get so many guys together all of us ready to do what we got to do together toute la gang, so when they tell us, ‘You go over the bags,’ we tell them, ‘Tu est foule, twee? … Fuck you, we don’t do that … You want to go, you go first … ’
Raises his fist.
“ ‘Strike … en grève … tu comprends, Rosie?’
“ ‘Okay … but, René, this ain’t no chantier, this is the army where the boss has got a big fucking Webley, and when he says you’re fired, you really get fired …’
“And nobody else in the platoon said yes but nobody said no …
“Half of us already dead or wounded and deaf and dumb the next morning with Rutherford and his suckhole sergeant Denny Rivers with that weasel smile coming right for us just in time for a dawn patrol …
Points.
“ ‘You-you-you-and-you? … Private Robidou?’ … ‘Sir?’ … ‘Take the lead … Hello? … Do you speak English? … I said take the lead … ’
“And this time, for the first time, the squad is pulling like this … towards Rummie and Rutherford … Rutherford and Rummie … and Rutherford … he pulls out that big four-fifty-five-calibre Webley that can’t hit anything more than ten feet away but that’s okay cuz it’s meant to be used on us.
Points like a pistol.
“ ‘Private Robidou?’ … and I got my three-oh-three right there … and I coulda done it, shoulda done it … but … Rummie, he throws down his rifle … ‘Mange la marde – tu parles Français, twee?’ … and then just walks away … don’t run, just walks away.
“And Rutherford says, ‘Sergeant Rivers, tell the MPs we have an incident to report … ’ That’s what he said … ‘An incident to report … ’ cuz that’s the way you talk if ya wanna have a fucking … building named after ya like they did with Rutherford on that – uh – that school uptown – yeah – well, fuck them and fuck him and fuck you and fuck the whole facking lot of ya … put that in your history books …
Takes a drink.
“Sure ya don’t wanna try the cream soda? …
“Okay, so something tells me I better get a hold of his sister … Marie-des-Neiges? … they got names like that in the bush … Marie-des-Neiges wrote to Rummie regular so I got a message out to her … cost me six packs of tailor-mades and one hundred rollies to smuggle it out through this French guy from France … and she writes back telling me to tell Rummie she’s gonna talk to somebody who can maybe talk to someone … and I think there was something in the paper … Le Devoir or one of those Montreal papers … some guy name so-and-so of the Labour Council … speaking out against the war …
“But they shot him, they shot Rummie for ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy’ … that’s what they called it … ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy … ’
“Was the Reverend Amen that told me about it … he was there … ‘Wouldn’t take comfort from me … ’ he said … fought them all the way not because he was scared. He wasn’t scared … I know Rummie … ‘Tu veux me tuer, je vais tu faire me tuer … ’ ‘Going to make you shoot me … ’ Why should he make it easy for them, heh?
Yells.
“WHY THE FUCK MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM? …
“Hey, so I’m not surprised when they call me in for questioning … wanting to know if I know anything about what they think I know … ‘cuz we know that you know … ’ ‘Well, then, sir, can you tell me what you know that I know so I’ll know what I’m suppose to know cuz otherwise I’m never going to know what I’m suppose to say unless you tell me … Sir? … ’
Mimes frowning officer signalling at ROSIE to leave.
“Go-go-go, they say …
“ ‘Yes, sir … ’
Mimes a comic salute pretending to poke himself in the eye.
“ ‘Yow-ww’ … and walks away … like this …
Sings and dances.
Oh, the moon shines down
on Charlie Chaplin
he’ll get a blasting
the shells are crashing
Hey, sergeant, gimme a pass!
Don’t want no bayonet up my ass!
“Hah, hah, Rosie, funny guy, right? … But – hmmm – now that Captain Talbot Leighton Arnold Rutherford with that snooty nose just like Pierre Elliot Trudeau? – hmmm? – now he’s got his eye on me …
Does the frowning side glance and points.
“ ‘You-you-you-and-you’ … taking me out on patrol into no man’s land night after night – pssttt-boom – psstt-boom – and I’m thi
nking … do I do it with the three-oh-three? … No … I don’t do it with a rifle … a grenade? … a grenade, yeah … cuz then, hey, so quick and easy, just …
Mimes priming a grenade and tossing it.
Clickk-tick-t –
Does silent mime of the explosion and then salutes.
“Private Rosie Rollins reporting back, sir sir sir? That Captain Talbot Arnold Leighton Loughton Rutherford Butterford Motherford, sir, is missing … his snooty nose, sir …
Holds up a nose.
“ … and wants it connected back to his face, sir, so he’ll be able to smell the roses and sing us his favourite song –
Roses are shining in Picardy
In the hush of the silver dew.
Roses are flowering in Picardy
But there’s never a rose like you.
Rosie sits back down.
“And it’s a strange thing because sometimes I think I did kill Rutherford … cuz when you get older sometimes what you remember as true is really just something you wanted to happen … But the Alleymans got him first …
“Yeah, got him on a day when he was really feeling good back of the front line doing that ‘Roses in Picardy’ song and, the truth was he could sing and he knew it and he was good-looking and he knew it – I mean really good-looking so you couldn’t help but look at him sometimes looking like he did that day waiting for the photographer to show up to take a picture of him getting the dso and smiling, just like a hero in a magazine, he was standing there when we get hit by a five-point-niner …
“ … and – cough − dust and – cough − smoke and Rutherford’s standing there trying to brush the dirt off his uniform but …
Holds up right arm.
“His right arm ain’t there … it’s hanging backwards off his shoulder …
Does the hanging right arm.
“ … and he’s looking at it, looking at it …
Mimes look of disbelief.
“And … looking around … trying to talk – beebadabeebada?
Lowers his arm.
“ … and then falls down … drops like a dirty diaper … lips still moving – beebadee-be-beb-eee-eee-ee – e – e – e –
And the roses will die with the summertime,
And our roads may be far apart,
But there’s one rose that dies not in Picardy,
’Tis the rose that I keep in my heart.
Takes a drink.
“And me, I guess I went unconscious, cuz next thing I know I’m waking up in the base hospital with little pieces of shrapnel sticking out all over me and a goddamn ling-ling-linging in my head that suddenly stops about ten years later, just when I’m getting used to it – ling-ling-ling and this … (trembles) … in my hands that’s got me worried cuz it’s getting worse and heading up my arms … and ‘Okay, Rosie,’ I tell meself, ‘okay, you don’t want to lose it … don’t want to end up in the Bug Ward where they’re really gonna tell me what to do and when to do it and how to do it … ’ And … I did lose it as far as my wife, Francine, is concerned … Until she finally straightened me out … smashed my face into a mirror and said, ‘Take a good look … ’
“That was thirty years ago.
“But I’ll see Jimmy tonight. Oh, yeah, comes back whenever I mention his name. I don’t say sorry no more.
Lifts his glass.
“Sure ya don’t wanna try that cream soda? …
Takes a drink.
“But right now I’m in that hospital sitting up on the edge of the bed looking down this long, long corridor with everybody just lying there in bed … fucked up, fed up, and far from home … when … some kind of commotion happening? … and I’m thinking, oh no, don’t tell me it’s the Reverend-fucking-Amen coming back to tell us, ‘It’s another Great Day for Canada’? … with Bed 1 saying something to the guy in Bed 2 and he’s turning to Bed 3 and Bed 4 tells 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9, and 10 tells me there’s some kind of riots in Quebec, he says … ‘Anti-Conscription Riots’ they called them, because the peasoups don’t want to go to war … those goddamn peasoups … Don’t want to go to war! … I mean who do they think they are doing something like that … don’t want to go to war … just don’t want to fight, that’s all … goddamn peasoups … don’t want to go to war … don’t want to go to war? … hey? … it’s not such a bad idea? … don’t want to go to war … we don’t want to go to war (chanting) don’t wanna go to war and – ‘What’s going on here?’ the doctor says … Doctor Breathe Deeply we called him … ‘Get back in your beds … Get back in your beds … ’ British with a stick and a monocle … ‘Back, get back … ’ And a push and a shove, and a shove and a push, and – boom – and a bunch of guys missing arms legs eyes and ears … smashing everything up to shit … throwing everything around and fighting the MPs … and then grabbing hold of Doctor Breathe Deeply and …
Mimes doctor getting tossed.
“One … and two … and three … out the third-storey window − sss-pprrr-oonnnn-nng! − landing on top of the Reverend Amen, who stands up and says …
Sings.
There’s a little bunch of sweetness,
That I long to call my bride,
And believe me I’m not happy,
Lest my baby’s by my side.
Rosie, you are my posie.
You are my heart’s bouquet.
Come out, here in the moonlight.
There’s something sweet I got to say …
Ah-h-h-h, breathe deeply.
Sits down.
“Well, yeah, we had fun with that, the first of the ‘Wanna Go Home Riots’ they called them … did that get in the history books? … ‘Wanna Go Home Riots’? … There at the Kimmel Park camp there near Liverpool? … and then in Halifax and Toronto and the Sault and Fort William and … that big fucking strike in Winnipeg taking over the whole city in 1919 declaring ourselves a Soviet or something like that … hammer and sickle, oh yeah, the real Bolsheviki stuff there with the Communist salute … was it the left hand or right hand? … Can’t remember … course you wouldn’t know … don’t even know who Little Beaver is let alone Vladimir Lenin …
Mimics Lenin in Slavic accent with hands on lapels.
“ ‘Comrades and friends, take my advice, pull down your pants and slide … slide … slide on the ice … ’
“Plenty of ice out there in Winnipeg 1919 … the closest we came to doing what Rummie said we gotta do and we did it … which is why you never hear about it cuz we made them look so fucking stupid showing them how to run a city … showed the whole world until they busted us up … That’s the truth … busted us up real good there in Winnipeg with me and a bunch of other comrades doing time in Stony Mountain for being Roosski-Polluski-Bosh-aviki …
“Oughta have a big Vimy-fucking-Ridge monumental to that strike put there cuz that was something worth remembering.
“Anyhow, so I head back to Montreal with no one there to greet me when I finally did get back to the Point … so many people dead, not there no more … so I looks up Rummie’s sister out there in the bush, since Rummie was the only one that feels like family to me … or whatever family’s supposed to feel like … Marie-des-Neiges … well, I thought she was pretty but she had this − cough − from working in the munitions plant − cough − from the chemicals − cough − didn’t even cry when I told her Rummie got the firing squad … too late for that … and − cough − and I kinda liked her and think she liked me but − cough − I gotta go − cough − I gotta go.
“Heard she died … Marie-des-Neiges …
“And Rummie … well … every year I come back here to Mother Martin’s because I told Rummie I was going to bring him here. I told him, ‘You know, Rummie, you know the first thing I’m going to do? … Tu sais que nous allons faire à Montréal? … Nous allons aller à la Mother Martin’s et commander de roast beef … used to do a good one here … rôti de roast de beef de boeuf de peas, des pois, avec un la Yorkshire pudding’ … had to explain to Rummie what that w
as … and mash … he wanted mash avec beaucoup de suisse de sauce champignons – mmmm – and – uh – carrots crème – mmmm – and then – ahhhh – we’ll sit back and drink and drink and drink and drink – aahhh – and then encore for supper, encore rôti de roast de boeuf de beef, de peas, des pois, ’ostie again and then drink and drink and drink and drink and then … and this always made Rummie laugh … and then … ‘Away, away, dîtes encore, Rosie’ … and then the next morning for breakfast we have …?
Sticks up arm.
“Hey, Doctor − docteur − rôti de roast de beef de boeuf des pois de peas pour moi et mon chum icette … Jerry Nines … ”
Lowers arm and gestures into characters of JERRY NINES.
And I says, “What? What are ya doing? Hey, Rosie, what are ya doing? Hey?” But Rosie keeps ordering extra everything over to the table … extra mash, extra peas, extra gravy … extra mushrooms … horseradish extra, extra fucking everything with a drink and then another drink and another drink … and then a round of drinks for the Black Watch coming in after the Remembrance Day parade …
And then the drinking and singing and laughing and sorta remembering Rosie trying to get up on a table and …
Starts getting up.
“Now I’m getting up on the table … never mind, Claude, I’ll pay for everything I break … been tipping him since ten o’clock this morning … I’m getting up on the fucking table … kill anybody that takes the cream soda …
Gets up on table.
“Comrades and friends … I’m not here to remember all the guys stupid enough to do what they were told and get themselves killed … I’m here, here to remember the guys who didn’t do what they were told and got killed trying to stop you from getting killed … remember?
Bolsheviki: A Dead Serious Comedy Page 3