The Gunner

by Paul Almond

  THE GUNNER

  Book Six of The Alford Saga

  Paul Almond

  For Joan, as always,

  Cousin Ted,

  And in memory of my father

  and his brave companions in

  the Canadian Field Artillery

  And for Canada’s soldiers

  who sacrifice so much on our behalf.

  Lieutenant Eric Almond, 1919

  The Western Front

  A NOTE ON USAGE

  I have adopted the usage of the diaries and reminiscences of WWI Gunners. So you will find fuze for fuse, SOS for S.O.S., MO for M.O. and so on. The military fashion of the time capitalizes Wagon Lines, Gunners, Drivers and other ranks, and the branches of the Military, such as Infantry and Artillery. Also, we English on the Gaspe never used the accent, so: Gaspe (sic). A Glossary of Military Ranks is added at the end.

  Part One

  Four Seasons on the Gaspe Coast

  Chapter One

  August 5, 1914

  “That there Kaiser, he wants war!”

  War! I looked at Mr. Byers in astonishment. No talk of war on the Coast that I heard. Furthest thing from our minds; Old Poppa and me were heading for New Carlisle with a shovel in the back: we planned on sticking up a cross on the grave of my grandfather. He’d been in wars all right — as a sailor fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, and in Alexandria, no stranger to war, for sure.

  “He may want it, but is he gonna get it?” Poppa relaxed the reins and wiped his face; that rain was driving in on us.

  I stared at Mr. Byers who pointed to the oilskins covering the bag beside him on the sulky. “These here newspapers, they say England’s gone and declared war. So Canada’s in, too.” He’d just come galloping down the Station Lane with the mail.

  I glanced sideways at Poppa. His eyes darkened and grew serious in those boney features, lean from long years in the wind and rain. With his Old Poppa, another James Alford, the one who deserted the Bellerophon over a hundred years ago, he’d built our Old Homestead from wilderness into one of the best farms on the whole Gaspe Coast, centred as it was between Gaspe and Matapedia.

  “I heard them fellas in Europe might be gittin’ all riled up. But who’d a thought it’d come to war?” He peered at our mail-driver over his greying moustache.

  Mr. Byers shook his head. “The station master, his telegraph tells of men already jinin’ up.” The railway had come through to Gaspe six or seven years ago, so now we got pretty up-to-date news.

  “Bad business,” groaned Poppa. “Thank ya, James. Guess we better be gettin’ on.”

  “I’ll leave yez a spare Quebec Chronicle at the post office.” Off he trotted.

  “The best!” Poppa hollered, while my thoughts spun: Canada at war! Not again!

  Thwack went the reins and back I skipped to a few years ago.

  I’d been in the loft after a hen I’d heard: she’d been proclaiming her laying loudly and I wanted her eggs. I had hurried forward over the hay to the huge, broad-axed beam, rested my elbows on it and looked down onto the threshing floor.

  Earle, about fourteen, was holding the axe, looking concerned at our elder brother, Jack, who was sitting on a cord of wood, holding his head in his hands. The headless chicken thrashed about and lay still. Our friend Dan was leaning against the broad boards of the mow.

  “Never seen a chicken kilt before, Jack?” asked Earle, incredulous.

  Jack shook his head. “No no, it was the... the birthday invitation — and maybe the blood.”

  Dan patted Jack on the shoulder. “Never thought asking you to my twenty-second birthday would have this effect!” Dan chuckled. “You sure sat down suddenly!”

  I wondered what was going on. I wanted to scramble down the ladder, but decided to stay quiet and watch.

  “I guess a soldier I knew came back. After all these years.”

  You see, when I was young, we Canadians had fought our first war on foreign soil, against the Boers. My eldest brother Jack, still in his twenties, had sailed to South Africa as a Church of England chaplain. So right after he came back, Poppa had given him a piece up on the hill behind our barn, and Jack had built a big house with a wrap-around veranda that he used to circle with his prayer book. Big stone fireplace inside. But he never had much time to come down all the way from Montreal. My sister-in-law, Stella (for Estelle) would bring their three boys, not yet teenagers, down for a month in the summers, but Jack only made it for a couple of weeks. His city parish somewhere in Montreal kept him pretty busy.

  “What soldier?” Dan scratched his head. “No soldiers around here nowadays.”

  “At the Zand River. We’d been ordered to cross after those Boers. But they let fly with such a thunderstorm of bullets — then I heard an unearthly screech.” Jack lifted his head and looked like he was about to let out a howl.

  The other two looked at him in astonishment.

  “You see,” Jack mumbled, “when a bullet strikes, you’re surprised, you don’t... War... You just have no idea.”

  “The soldier got hit?”

  Jack nodded. “I crawled towards him on my elbows. Any second, I felt I’d get mine.” He seemed to want to talk about it like never before. “When anything moved, bullets zipped past like flies. But I had to reach him. So hot, Lord! That sun beat down on us. Well, desert, of course. Like most everywhere we fought in South Africa. May, it was.” He paused. “You see, just two days before, we’d all celebrated that soldier’s twenty-second birthday.”

  Dan and Earle looked at each other. They understood now. And so did I.

  Nobody spoke.

  “The bullet was a dum-dum. It entered through his shoulder, came out through his stomach, as he crawled for the river. Guts spilling out. Blood. And flies... I passed him my canteen, and he drank. He kept pleading for me to do something. But what could I do? He was fast heading for the Almighty. I didn’t want to tell him. So I just stayed, and held him in my arms... until...”

  “He died?” Earle asked.

  Jack nodded and straightened. “Every night when I send my prayers heavenward, I ask the good Lord, please, never again send the calamity of war upon the face of the earth again.”

  In the buggy as Poppa and I trotted on, that rain kept coming down! The gusts beat in on us and above, clouds pressed down as ominously as that war news. The sea on our left was like a battlefield — furious, great menacing whitecaps advancing against our cliffs like waves of Germans. Oh yes, I could just see them as Huns — surging and bashing at our high red rocks. Yessir, I’d make a great soldier, I decided. Nothing would keep me from defending our British Empire.

  ***

  Reaching New Carlisle, we pulled up at St. Andrew’s Church, whitewashed walls under a black tarred roof. I jumped out of the buggy and tied Lively to the hitching post. The rain had slackened off. I got the pick, shovel and white cross from under the oilskins, while Poppa went to the graveyard. I’d already carved a little sign, accenting the letters with black tar: James Alford 1777-1863 and his wife, Catherine Garrett 1794-1863.

  Poppa’d been talking of doing this trip for ages, on the anniversary of grandfather’s death. But this was hay-making month and we had to get feed into that barn. So we had waited.

  I walked around behind the church to join Poppa. “Here’s where we put him down. July twenty-fifth, two days after he died. Rainy day just like today. Or maybe that was when we buried old Momma. Beside him, same year. October fourth.”

  “Has this here marker been rotted long?” I dropped the pick and shovel, and laid the cross to one side.

  “Dunno, me son. Your brother Jack told me about it. Promised I’d do something.”

  “Why didn’t you put up a marble then?” I could see quite a few around.

  “Times
was hard. Had to save for what might come.” I gestured for him to punch a hole in the turf with his heel where he wanted the cross. I swung the pick to loosen up the ground before digging the hole.

  He went on, “When you get that there big job in Montreal, teaching, maybe you’ll come and put up a good marble marker.”

  “What about Jack doing it? He’s got that city parish.” He had begun as a clergyman on the Canadian Labrador the year I was born.

  “Minsters don’t make nawthin’; all they got is respect. But that don’t buy marble.”

  I didn’t like the idea of teaching, and I didn’t like the thought of settling down into some boring life. I wanted to travel. Maybe this war would let me do that.

  “So if my grandfather fought, I should too. I’m a terble good shot — with our .32, I can pick off a groundhog two acres away.”

  “You’re not going to no war, me son. You’re finishing school.” Poppa was a man of few words, but when he said something, he meant it.

  “After I finish school in the summer, then I’ll go.”

  “After school, you’ll go to university, like Jack.”

  “Let Earle go.” I laid down the pick and picked up the shovel to dig the hole for our cross.

  “He don’t like books none.”

  That was true. My older brother was much more a farmer than me. I preferred reading: Boys Own annuals, and then G.A. Henty, Kipling of course, and even Ned Buntline, though I thought his westerns a bit corny. My favourite book so far was Black Beauty. I wondered if there’d be horses up at the Front.

  Even though it was still cold, the rain had finally let up. Poppa was sweating under his wool jersey and waterproofs. “These damn oilskins, hateful rigs.” He took them off.

  I found them stiff and smelly for sure, all that oil rubbed into the cotton. “Well, at least they kept you dry.”

  “Are you getting them rocks?”

  I walked back and picked up a few good-sized pieces to wedge against the cross. “So why does nobody talk about my grandfather serving under Nelson? That’s pretty important.”

  “He didn’t want nobody to know about that, me son.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was told he deserted. You can be shot for that. He jumped ship, they say, in Port Daniel Bay.”

  That made no sense to me. “What was a British warship doing in Port Daniel Bay, for Pete’s sake?” I couldn’t make head or tail of that story.

  “Well, they say she was chasing American privateers. In them times, Canada and America weren’t on the best of terms. They’d just had a revolution below the border a while back and broke away from England. Now let’s get on with this, me son.”

  I knelt and put the rocks in the hole around the cross as a kind of wedge. But I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. Here we were putting up a monument to grandfather’s memory — didn’t I deserve to learn more? “Well, he’s the one who built our house, wasn’t he?”

  “For sure, he built the Old Homestead. But after Jack and the girls was born, before you came along, your mother and I decided to put on that west wing. So that’s how it got like it is.”

  “And we put on that nice new summer kitchen this spring.”

  Poppa nodded. “I would’a done that sooner, when the railroad gave us the money for the right of way across the farm. But right then, you couldn’t hire no one for a decent wage — building that bridge across our hollow put the wages out of sight. So I bided my time, saved what I made — not many others did, o’ course. I figured when everyone fell onto hard times, like now, I could get plenty of help.”

  “You’re a canny one, Poppa,” I admitted. “That house will never need another addition.” But I went on, “I bet your Old Poppa’d be proud if he saw the size of the farm right now, and the house he started.”

  “I think we better just be putting that sod back, and getting back home afore she starts to rain again.”

  We filled in the loose earth around and I replaced the sods of grass. Pretty nice job, it looked to me.

  Well, I hadn’t yet won my right to sail off to England and join the fight for civilization. But I decided: just keep trying.

  Chapter Two

  Christmas Day 1914

  After our big dinner, I snowshoed up the hill behind our house and set off to find Raine. The sun was dropping behind airy clouds that scudded eastward, meaning we’d have clear weather. And only about ten degrees of frost. I had something to tell her, and I had no idea how she’d take it. I was set on going to war, oh yes, and she’d either be so proud of me, or she’d be furious. But anyway, in the canvas bag slung over my shoulder, I’d brought her a present.

  By now we’d had a couple of letters from my brother, Jack. He’d joined up as a padre right after Canada entered the conflict and now he was in England, looking after the troops. Even though it was no secret that he hated war, the Empire came first, he told us. Maybe he’d help me twist Poppa’s arm and get me to France, too.

  I reached the brow of the Hollow: ahead stood the black outline of our new iron railway bridge. I’d worked on it, oh yes. Made me proud. I used to go back with water for the workers. Momma wasn’t too taken with me doing that, but Poppa liked the idea of the little money I made. I’d pump three or four pails from our extra deep well in the house, stick them on the wheelbarrow and wheel them back to the crew climbing and hammering away on that great timber falsework holding up the huge trestles and latticed girders. Quite a bridge, all iron like the Eiffel Tower in France, it was said; terble high and maybe four hundred feet long.

  I started doing the water as a favour, so they would let me watch. Then the foreman, a tall fellow with a big moustache, he made it into a job. Before school, soon as it was light I’d haul those pails back, and after school I’d pick them up, bring em home to fill and get them back again. Hard work, but although I’m short, I’m well built and I work hard when I get the urge. Five cents a day — that was something for a kid my age, not ten years old. Myself, I would’a just drunk out of the brook below, and some of the men did that, but most loved that fresh water from our deep well.

  I looked down. The millpond had already froze, and yesterday a couple of fellas had started to clean off the snow. Manderson’s dam, which my brother-in-law Joe Hayes had reinforced to run his sawmill, made a pretty sizeable pond, more like a small lake a couple of hundred feet across. Skating usually started later, in January. We’d strap on our skates by the mill and then we’d sail around, play tag, tease the girls while they did that new-fangled figure-skating out there in the moonlight. Nothing like a silent snow-lit night with the moon reflecting off the glittering landscape for romance, though maybe I was too young to start thinking like that. So pure, everything around us, so untouched, gentle whorls of snow, black trees clutching their precious white bundles with outstretched branches.

  I never saw Raine skating even though her shack looked sideways down on the rink. Come to think of it, none of the side-hill children did. I saw she was missing all the fun so had decided to buy her a pair of skates. I saved up and sent away to Eaton’s; cost a pretty penny, I’ll say: a dollar, just the blades. Then I had to find boots at Mr. Ernie Hayes’s store. Almost another two dollars. But worth it, I felt sure.

  Now I hadn’t really seen Raine since the snow fell to stay. School had kept me busy, and I’d been helping repair stable stalls, doing my homework, and reading a lot, of course. Not much time to go snowshoeing, which was when I used to catch sight of her.

  I made my way down the steep Mill Road, and across the Hollow into the trees to where she usually came with her pail. Them side-hill people drank, cooked and washed — if they washed at all — with that brook water. No wells in the shacks, that’s for sure. Raine used to get herself clean in the dam, she told me, like all the shack kids. Early morning, I guess. Better than nothing, and our brook sure was clear; the trout loved it.

  How could I get her attention if she stayed in that little square wooden house — thrown togeth
er, all tilted with unpainted boards and a shaggy roof, one room upstairs, one down. The other two shacks had partitions upstairs, but hers, well, they all just lived like that. I stood far behind a spruce thicket; I had no desire to go bang on her door — they might treat me like we treated them: no trespassing. If she didn’t come, maybe her cousin Zotique would. The son of lame François in the third shack, he was a couple of years older than me. Sometimes he worked on farms or got a fill-in job at the mill. Jet black hair, always too long, black eyes, a nice guy but a bit funny.

  You see, when the railway had come through, you just can’t imagine the crowds o’ fellas who filled up our Shigawake — unbelievable! Not all rowdies, no, first came the engineers and the surveyors. My sisters used to get all dressed up and make sure to be seen, playing croquet out in Momma’s flower garden in their finery, when them educated fellas come trotting past. But to cut a long story short, they may have come trotting past, they may have stopped for a gossip, they may even have had tea with Old Momma, but when that big bridge over our Hollow got built, off they trotted down the Coast never to be seen again.

  They left behind a bunch of ne’er-do-wells. Joe Hayes had told the fellas they could throw up a couple of shacks on his side hill above the millpond — to keep them from bothering us out on the front road. Trouble is, they stayed afterwards. Sundays after church, those side-hill people became a subject of discussion. Their families weren’t like us: so poor, all from away. No one knew what they got up to in them shacks, except having children. Raine’s poppa, old Tuffield (I guess from Théophile) ended up working for Joe, firing that big kiln where his boards dried: not a bad sort of fellow. His brother, Blind Pierre in the third shack, all he could see to do was make children. And maybe he didn’t need eyes to do that, neither. How his poor wife got along, I’ll never know.

  Hauling water back every day, I got to see this little creature in her threadbare cotton frock, staring at me with big brown eyes. She had short, mousy hair and a skinny frame that never got a square meal. I took to bringing her an apple or two, and sometimes a sandwich of Momma’s bread. I’d watch her gulp it down like a starving fox. I found out her name, something like “la reine”, which is queen in French, a bit of irony I liked. She was baptised Marie-Reine, but everyone called her Raine. I don’t know what her folks did after that huge bridge was built, because the jobs went on down the line with it, and then ended altogether when the rails reached Gaspe.