by P. S. Duffy
“We like to worry Jerry with our raids. That’s how we get intelligence. Take a few prisoners. Wreak a little havoc while we’re at it.” Conlon finished off his Scotch and reluctantly corked the bottle.
“Yes sir. Quite a reputation back of the line.”
“Good fodder for the papers, anyway. Morale booster for the homefolks.” Conlon’s humility seemed genuine. “That’s how we lost those last two lieutenants,” he added. “One captured. One bled out in No Man’s Land before we could bring him in. A colonel somewhere back of the line had the bright idea of conducting a raid in broad daylight to add an additional element of sur prise. Raids keep the men on their game until the next big push. Maybe not in broad daylight, though. Maybe that’s not a good idea.” He shook his head and wagged the bottle by the neck. “This keeps our morale up, eh?” Then he flipped open the lid of a dented footlocker and placed the Scotch carefully back in it. “Sadly, we can’t afford to dip into morale boosting too often. Nothing like a good whisky, Scotch or Irish.” He put his feet on the locker, his hands behind his head and faced Angus. “Though I prefer Irish. So, which are you, MacGrath?”
“Sir?”
“Scotch? Irish? Farmer, fisherman? Tinker, tailor . . . man about town?”
“Sailor,” Angus filled in. “Coastal trader, out of Snag Harbor, Nova Scotia.”
“Quaint.”
“Snag. Snag Harbor, not Snug.”
“Alright, not so quaint. Might have heard of it. Down Lunenburg way?”
“Across the bay.”
“My mother’s got people there in Mahone Bay. Marriott’s Cove, I think it is.” Conlon picked up the letter again. “Says here you’re a good leader. Unfortunately, good leaders lead, and then get killed because of it . . . Special talent in the art department.” Conlon looked up quizzically. “You an artist?”
“An artist?”
“That’s what it says. ‘Special talent in the art department.’ Okay, now I get it. They sent you up because what I need in this landlocked hell is a sailor who can paint. And here I thought you were just another warm body.”
Angus stared into his palm for traces of Wickham’s blood. He cleared his throat. “The C.O. saw some quick sketches I’d done from memory. I’m not an artist. I can draw,” he mumbled.
Conlon waited.
“Maps,” Angus said. “I’ve had experience drawing charts.”
“And why at the Front instead of in London with the rest of the cartographers? Didn’t make it?”
“Turns out they had plenty of men in cartography.”
“No surprise there, eh? Cushy job back of the line. So they herded you over to the infantry.”
“That’s right.”
Conlon seemed to be waiting for more, so Angus added, “I guess the major was referring to terrain maps. And uh, navigational skills, sailor, you know—good at night vision, estimating distances. Night raids maybe?” He’d turned into a babbling idiot.
“Uh-huh. And you’re a good sailor? Because so far there’s not much evidence you’re a good navigator.”
Got myself here, didn’t I, Angus wanted to say. But before he could reply, Conlon smiled. “Forgive me. Like I said, it’s been a long night. There’s a crater out there. Vicar’s Crater, it’s called. Krauts and us eye each other across it day and night. Routine patrol and suddenly we’re down four men. So, our reputation isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But that’s our job, guarding holes in the ground. Maybe could have used your night vision. So, now tell me. How’d you and Wickham get so far off track?”
The question was conversational, lacking urgency or blame. Yet Angus felt his throat constrict and his tongue grow thick. He said something about how there had been shelling, and in the smoke and confusion, Wickham beckoned him onto a different path, less traveled, safer, he said. Abandoned, it seemed. Even without checking his compass, Angus had a sense they were going in the wrong direction. But he had no idea how far off they were and didn’t know exactly where the 17th was, anyway. When he finished, Angus wasn’t sure he’d made sense of it in the telling or the remembering because the blood, bright red, still seemed to be on his hand as he looked at it.
“So Wickham, chosen to lead you up here, got spooked and then took off on a route of his own design, and then got killed because of it. Poor sap,” Conlon said. “And you didn’t think to question him about going off track, you being his superior officer. And a good navigator.”
Angus hung his head. His eyes slid to the underlined words in the green book on Conlon’s desk. The Iliad, not The Odyssey. Armies gathering now, “as when from gloomy clouds a whirlwind springs, that bears Jove’s thunder on its dreadful wings, Wide o’er the blasted fields the tempest sweeps . . .” He could read no more. He might just sink into the chair with his boots forever planted on the earthen floor, armies of seabirds—gulls, terns, phalaropes, frigate birds—winging through his head. . . .
“Sorry, sir. After the shelling I . . .” He could still feel the ground shudder. “I failed you—him,” he said in a miserable whisper.
“Alright,” Conlon said, his voice kind. “I’ll take your report later. Lieutenant Publicover will show you to quarters and cover for you at stand-to. Get some sleep. Apparently you need it.” His bear-like shadow swept up the timbered walls as he stood. “That’s The Iliad, by the way,” he said. “We’re not the first to gather beneath the cliffs of Troy. Some comfort in that. Maybe some of us will live to tell the tale . . . Ever read the opening lines?” Angus shook his head. “Might want to,” Conlon said. He opened the door to a rush of cold air. “That ridge will be our making or our breaking.”
Angus half-stood as he left, then thumped back down, the Scotch working its way through him, his limbs heavy. He glanced back at the book just as Lieutenant Publicover burst in. Before Angus could rise from his chair, Publicover introduced himself with a broad smile, snapped a salute and opened the door again.
Angus came to enough to state his name.
“Yep. Got it from the captain,” Publicover said. “C’mon.” Angus followed him with heavy steps to their dugout, smaller but otherwise not much different from the captain’s. It was almost 4:30 in the morning, the hour of stand-to when the men lined up on the fire steps of the parapet, bayonets fixed, eyes forward and unblinking, as they did every dawn for possible attack and every evening as the sun set. Across No Man’s Land, the Germans would be doing the same.
Why anyone would attack at dawn or sunset when everyone was fully prepared was a mystery. Yet that was precisely when frontal assaults took place. Back in training, Roddy Gordon, a great moose of a man with red whiskers from Antigonish, had concluded it was an elaborately staged play—curtain up at dusk, everyone in their places, second act at night, curtain call at dawn. Angus had liked Roddy. Wondered if he’d ever see him again.
Publicover showed Angus his bunk and started a rapid-fire complaint about the losses the night before. They’d have had better luck, he said, if he’d been in on the raid. “Might have captured a few Krauts or had a few more kills. We’re down a couple of officers—guess that’s why you’re here.”
“Those two lieutenants,” Angus said slowly. “Pals of yours?”
Publicover shrugged. “Barely knew their names.” He pointed to the wall. “Here’s your peg.” He slung Angus’s haversack on it. Then he grabbed a rifle off Angus’s bunk. “This here’s my friend, my Lee Enfield,” he said, stroking the barrel. “Not as accurate as the Canadian Ross, maybe, but less likely to have the bolt fly into your forehead.”
“You carry a rifle? An officer with a rifle?”
“I carry a revolver like any good officer. This is my souvenir. Got it off a dead private a year ago, back when you couldn’t abandon the old Ross. See, the thing is—”
“Hold it. You’ve been here a year?”
“Joined in ’15. Didn’t get in it ’til ’16. I’m still an ‘original’ though.” Publicover’s eyes glittered in the gloom.
He was Simon Peter grow
n up. Same sandy hair, same almond-shaped eyes, but his were brilliant blue. Taller. Older, of course, but not by much. Smattering of freckles, visible even in the dim light. “How old are you?” Angus asked. He didn’t look a day over seventeen.
“Keep her oiled and in perfect condition,” Publicover continued, cradling the rifle and turning it over slowly. “Mud fouls things pretty quick here. They’re never not fouled. I hate that. I’d really like a knife, too, but haven’t found the right one. I’m holding out for a good solid Bowie—not store-bought. One that’s seen action and will see some more.” He placed the Lee Enfield evenly on his bunk. “Twenty. I’m twenty.”
“Really.” Angus didn’t believe it for a minute.
“Okay. Nineteen, which is almost twenty.”
“So, been in it since you were seventeen.”
“Yep. And still here. Even better.” The boy-lieutenant smiled. “Get some sleep. I’ll handle our end of stand-to. Captain’s orders. Wake you later,” he said as he left.
LATER CAME ALL too soon. Publicover was shaking him awake when a man’s scream pierced the air. Sniper? Angus flashed a look at Publicover.
“It’s in the trench! C’mon!” Publicover raced off, Angus right behind him.
Around a traverse they came upon four men and one more on the ground, tunic open, blood pouring over his collar. A sergeant was ranting at a dumbstruck private, “What the hell were you doing?” and, alternately, at a stretcher-bearer, on his knees, cutting away at the man’s tunic, “What the hell are you doing? He’s dead, I tell you!”
“Ricketts! What happened here?” Publicover demanded. The sergeant wheeled around.
“Seems Fallows here fired on Orland. By accident. He’s a stiff, sir, Orland is.”
The stretcher-bearer continued his ministrations. Angus bent to the wounded soldier. Publicover turned on the stricken Fallows. “Fallows?”
Fallows stammered out his explanation. “I, I . . . come back from a working party. Was cleaning my rifle and the safety—I don’t know sir. It went off just as Orland came round the traverse.”
“I saw it. Happened as he said, sir.” Ricketts had composed himself.
Angus felt for a pulse and shook his head at Publicover. The stretcher-bearer continued cutting away at Orland’s jacket and reached in his pack for dressings. “Stop now, soldier,” Angus said. “It’s over.” But the man worked all the faster, splashing iodine on the wound, pressing bandages against it. More men gathered.
“Orland’s got it,” one of them said.
“How?” another asked.
“Fallows. Gun misfired.”
The stretcher-bearer reached for more dressings. “That’s enough!” Angus said. “He’s dead. You’ll not waste dressings on a dead man.” The stretcher-bearer ignored him. Angus again felt for a pulse, for breath against his hand, but there was none. So much blood. The bullet must have struck the jugular.
“That’s an order, soldier,” Angus said.
“It’s his brother, Orland’s brother, sir,” Ricketts said, indicating the stretcher-bearer, who was pressing yet another dressing against the wound. The other stretcher-bearer sat back on his haunches.
“You heard him. Stop. That was an order,” Publicover said. He withdrew his revolver. “Soldier! Did you hear me?”
The stretcher-bearer kept right on. Publicover, arm down and taut, revolver in hand, pushed through to the kneeling figure. The men fell back as he slowly raised the gun to the man’s head. Publicover’s response was controlled and rehearsed. Even in the shadows, his eyes were blue ice. Angus grabbed the stretcher-bearer’s wrist. The stretcher-bearer did not move. “Dead,” Angus said. “No,” the man whispered, “no,” and pressed the bandage against the wound.
Angus tightened his hold, and with his right hand inches above the body made the sign of the cross. “I am the resurrection and the life,” he said softly. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. In the midst of life we are in death.” Slowly the stretcher-bearer raised his eyes. Tears filled them. Angus met his gaze. “And, here, in the midst of death, we are in life,” he said.
Publicover cocked the gun. The stretcher-bearer, eyes fixed on Angus, gun pressed to his temple, slowly opened his fingers, releasing a streak of cotton gauze that unraveled across the body and into the mud. Then he sat back on his heels, head and bloodied hands hanging. Angus stood, and without missing a beat, Publicover said, “Sergeant, get these men to their breakfast, then report to Captain Conlon. Fallows, you’ll come with us to report in now. You two,” he said to the stretcher-bearers, “take Orland back.” Orland’s brother, sobbing outright now, and the other stretcher-bearer lifted the body onto the stretcher.
HOURS LATER IN their dugout, Publicover, hands on his hips, stood inches from Angus. “You a goddamn padre or a madman or both?” he demanded, nostrils flaring. “The men need to know an order from an officer is an order. I’ve a mind to report you to Conlon.”
Angus countered that the boy had been stunned, that all he’d seen was his brother bleeding out.
“You’re the one gave him the order!”
True enough.
“Better think about that, MacGrath. Think very carefully. There were five men there, not just one. You give an order, you damned well better mean it.”
“The man was in shock,” Angus replied. He could hardly believe this boy was right, but he knew he was.
“Not enough to ignore a cocked revolver.”
“You’d have killed him?”
“The gun spoke to him and the others with or without your holy ministrations. Let me introduce you to the Front, Lieutenant. It’s a place where men’s lives depend on following orders, or hadn’t you heard?”
Something scrabbled nearby. They both looked down. A plump rat with a sleek coat and a pink, lavender and yellow nose was continuing his inspection of Angus’s haversack, drooping at an angle from its peg. Near the rat’s hindquarters lay a box of pastels, a slot for every color. The pastels were scattered about in half-gnawed crumbs.
“Jesus. What the hell?” Publicover shot an incredulous look at Angus.
“Pastels,” Angus replied calmly.
“Pastels? Jesus. Sweet, sweet Jesus. Pastels . . .” Publicover whistled a falling note. “You are a madman. And we thought they were sending us an officer.”
“I’ve heard only madmen survive.”
The rat waddled toward them. “Well, that may be true, but I’ll tell you something,” Publicover said slowly, folding his arms. “Ratty doesn’t much care for your chalks.”
Angus folded his arms as well. “Should have brought oils. Or maybe he’d prefer watercolors.”
Publicover snorted out a laugh. The rat, streaked nose quivering, looked up and blinked. “And that,” Publicover said, staring back at it, “might be the only made-up face we’ll see for months.”
Angus squatted down and picked through the chalk crumbs. Only the browns and blacks and a single gray remained intact.
THAT EVENING DURING stand-to, the sky crossed itself with streaks of lavender, yellow and rosy pink over the unhinged earth, over the coiled barbed wire, unexploded shells, rusting equipment left to rot in No Man’s Land—a cratered landscape of ruin. Had his pastels survived, Angus would have been hard-pressed to put them to paper. For in that silken sky above and wounded earth below lay all one needed to know—a knowing so obvious, it hardly needed an artist to expand it into a larger truth.
FOUR
February 9th, 1917
Snag Harbor, Nova Scotia
Avon Heist, schoolmaster for the combined sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, closed his book and removed his spectacles. He withdrew a perfectly folded, perfectly white handkerchief and rubbed each lens. He refolded the handkerchief, tucked it in his pocket and announced that lessons were over—that he now wished to speak to them about something else. Behind him the chalkboard was clean, the maps loosely rolled. Above the maps, framed portraits of King George and Queen Mary, poorly
hung, tilted forward.
Mr. Heist surveyed the faces looking up at him. He rose from his desk and walked to the bank of windows lining the west wall. With his back to the class, he said, “Germany.”
He rocked for a time on his short feet, hands clasped behind his back. Fat flakes of snow drifted past the windows. The class shifted in their seats. The clock ticked a notch closer to 3:00.
“Germany,” Mr. Heist repeated. He unclasped his hands, tugged his black wool vest and turned to the class. “Germany is not one state, but many. We would do well to remember that.”
Simon and Zenus Weagle exchanged puzzled glances.
“Germany, composed of many states, is now a country held hostage by the few.”
Held hostage? Simon sat up.
“This morning, a fight broke out in the schoolyard. Ruffians and hooligans, you know who you are. But that is not important. What is important,” Mr. Heist continued with brisk strides back to his desk, “is that during this exchange of fisticuffs there was a good deal of name-calling. Kraut. Fritz. Hun. Pejoratives spat out, friend against neighbor. Words said without a thought to their meaning.”
Out came his pencil, rat-a-tat-tat on the desk. He lined it up just so and said, “I’ve decided to use this as an opportunity to inform and educate against the ignorance these words convey. A lesson in tolerance, if you will.”
An ash-covered log in the woodstove plumped softly down to dying embers. The room was growing colder. Mr. Heist took no notice. “Do you know of Mr. Fritze from La Have?” he said. “No? I didn’t think so. A loyal Canadian these many years, a Canadian of German extraction, he was not allowed to enlist. Volunteered and was refused. Barred because of his name—a name that evokes the worst sort of bigotry.”
Tim Bethune leaned back in his seat and folded his arms.
“Many among us are of German lineage,” Mr. Heist continued, “as am I. Some of us more recently than others.”
“No kidding,” Robbie McLaren sniggered at Tim.