Most of the men in the barn joined in the conversation and cursed Currie for his drive to win what could be the last battle of the war. The next night, however, they followed orders and marched over Belgian fields towards Mons, passing abandoned German guns and helmets. Jim felt very vulnerable marching overland for miles. There were many areas around them that could conceal an enemy sniper; he was used to the security of trenches and craters. When they were within sight of the town, the army stopped and waited for further orders.
Late that night, the Canadians encircled the town. Scouts had reported that most of the German machine gunners were in the southeast section of Mons, so the army entered the town from the south, west and northwest just after midnight.
Jim crept along the rain-soaked cobblestone streets, with all of his senses on high alert. A cloud cover shrouded the town in a ghostly haze. Jim heard explosions of gunfire to the south and slipped into a doorway, aiming his rifle towards the street.
He saw a flash of light and heard the staccato of gunfire coming from an upper-storey window across the street. With lightning speed, a Canadian sniper returned the gunfire. As Jim cautiously looked around, he saw a fellow soldier, collapsed on the ancient stones of the street. He ran to the injured man, grabbed him by his tunic, and dragged him to the safety of the door recess.
The injured man’s eyes were open and he muttered, “Thanks, pal. I think Tom got the bugger. I’ll get up in a minute. I’m having trouble seeing out of my left eye, but I think I’m all right.”
Jim could see that a bullet had entered one side of the soldier’s temple and exited the other side, yet miraculously he had survived. Jim helped the man struggle up to lean against the heavy wooden door.
“Stay here, mate, and I’ll see if I can get help. You’ve been shot in the head.”
The injured man gingerly put his hand to his head, looked at the blood on his fingers, and crumpled to the steps in a faint. Jim recognized one of their runners coming towards him and yelled.
“Get this man to a medic. He needs help now!”
Jim saw that the injured soldier was breathing fairly regularly and would soon be attended to by a medic. Reassured, he advanced farther into the town. The heavy fighting continued through the night.
The battle was over by seven o’clock that morning. The last of the Germans in Mons had surrendered or been killed, and, a few hours later, Jim heard the news that all hostilities would cease at eleven o’clock.
A Canadian runner raced into Mons and shouted, “The Armistice has been signed!”
Several soldiers ran through the cobblestone streets, banging on doors and windows and shouting that the war was over. Jim watched families slowly emerge from their cellars. They were thin and bedraggled, but spirited as they surrounded their liberators. The Canadian Highlanders further stirred emotions when they marched their pipe bands through the town. Jim found himself surrounded by ecstatic civilians as they crowded and cheered. The troops were back-slapped, kissed and given small gifts of biscuits and bits of ribbon. The sound of the deadly gunfire of those early morning hours was now replaced with the joyous ring of church bells and the rousing call of the pipes. The town clock added to the noisy celebrations as it clanged eleven times.
Jim smiled weakly and detached himself from the crowd. He slipped into a deserted alleyway and pulled out the photo of Annie. Emotion broke his voice as he whispered, “I’m coming home, Annie. I’m coming home.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Bobby burst through the front door and shouted, “Ma, the war is over! The news is all around town. Everyone is cheering and celebrating! Listen, you can hear all the church bells ringing.” He gave his mother a hug and added, “This means Da is coming home!”
Annie was afraid to believe it. “I thought this day would never come. It’s been a long two years without your father.”
“It will be grand to have him back home. And Ma, now we can buy the ticket for Gran! We can start to fix up her bedroom in the parlour.”
Annie regarded her eldest son affectionately. It made her heart glad that he fondly remembered his grandmother and was eager to see her again.
“You’re right, son. I’m just as excited as you are to think that we will soon have them both here with us. We can be busy making plans for your grandmother while we wait to hear from your Da. In fact, I’ll write to the ticket agents in Toronto today.”
The following day, Jack came home with three newspapers and handed them to Annie. “They printed up three editions of the paper yesterday!”
Annie looked over the headlines. “Oh, boys, the war is really is over. I was afraid to believe it!”
She knew from Jim’s last letter that he had been heading for Mons, so an article about Canadian troops capturing Mons as the last act of the war caught her attention. She read that Mons had been taken from the Germans shortly before dawn. She tried to suppress her worry about Jim being in this last battle. She would not know if he had survived it until she received a letter. She took the newspapers upstairs to her bedroom to privately check the lists of casualties in all three papers. She turned to the page that named the wounded and dead, and ran her finger down the list; thankfully she did not find Jim’s name.
Annie decided to focus all her energies on plans to get her mother to Canada. That afternoon, she wrote out a cheque for the enormous amount of one hundred and ten dollars and forty-five cents to A.F. Webster and Sons. She wrote the address in Toronto on the envelope and asked Bobby to mail it, knowing he would want to.
Annie still did not receive mail from Jim the following week, nor thankfully a telegraph bearing bad news. Bobby brought home a letter from A. F. Webster and Sons, however, and she wasted no time in tearing the envelope open. Inside she found a receipt and a short note.
Mrs. J. Kidd,
Bear Falls, Ont.
Dear Mrs. Kidd,
We duly received your letter of the 12th enclosing a check for $110.45 for passage for Mrs. Larsen from Bergen to Toronto. We have sent the ticket forward as requested, and now enclose a receipt for the same.
Yours truly,
A.F. Webster and Sons
Steamship Ticket Agents
She found a salmon-pink slip of paper enclosed; it was the receipt for transportation for one adult from Bergen to Toronto, marked paid in full. Annie held the paper to her chest and closed her eyes. It is finally becoming a reality. Mother will come to live with us now. She had arranged for Mother’s transportation in early May because she thought that the ocean would be calmer than in the winter, and it would also involve a shorter train ride to Toronto because the seaway would be open. Annie and Alfie had already planned that their mother would stay a month with him in Toronto, and then take the train north to Annie in June.
Early in December, Annie finally received a letter from Jim. It had taken several weeks to reach her but she was reassured by the date on the envelope that he had survived the battle at Mons. She sat down on the familiar bench by the window in the post office, her vision blurred with sudden tears. Trying to calm herself, she took off her hat and unbuttoned her coat. Inhaling deeply, she opened the envelope and began to read.
Dearest Annie,
It does not seem real to me yet, but I will finally be returning home. I’m sure you have read in the papers how we were in Mons the same morning of the ceasefire. I can’t help but resent that we suffered more casualties when we could have just waited. You likely saw a picture of Currie perched on his horse saluting us in Mons main square. I suppose it is possible that I am somewhere in the photo. Old soldiers like me followed the orders, but we were angry to have to risk our lives one more time when the end of the war was so close. I should be happy that I survived, but can’t help but feel guilty that I am still alive when so many others perished.
I will be shipped to England sometime in January. We all want to leave now, but we have to wait until decisions are made. You must forgive me for my melancholy mood. I think I’ll improve once I’m bac
k on English soil. We’ve been marching for miles and I am weary. I know that I need to be thankful for all I have. I often wonder why I’m still here, but I just have to pull out your photo and the picture of our five boys - then I’m determined to get home. Take very good care of yourself and give my love to the boys. I will write again when I get to Eat Apples (our slang for Etaples) and will hopefully know by then when I will be shipped home.
All my love, your husband, Jim
Annie refolded the letter and tucked it into her pocket. She dried her eyes with her mitten, and stood up to button her coat and arrange her scarf before she left the warmth of the post office. She opened the heavy wooden door and braced herself for the sharp tingle of freezing air on her forehead and cheeks. Large snowflakes clung to her hat and coat as she walked, trudging through the soft snowdrifts accumulating on the road. The strong, cold wind increased in intensity. Annie was relieved when she finally climbed the front steps to her house.
Once inside, she quickly closed the front door behind her and stomped her boots on the mat to loosen the snow. Georgie was sitting on the floor near the kitchen stove, keeping Hal and Henry laughing by building wood block towers and purposely toppling his creations. Georgie was pale and thin, but much stronger now. Annie felt a catch in her throat as she looked at him.
Jack was stirring soup at the stove and looked over to his mother. “I have lunch almost ready now. Did we have any mail?”
“Yes, we did get a letter from your Da. He is fine, and just waiting for a ship to take him to England. Oh, boys, I can hardly believe that he’s finally coming home!”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Jim got off the military train at Etaples. It was his fourth time in this small fishing port on the coast of France since 1917, and he hoped it was his last. The town was a railroad centre, convenient to the Allies, and had a huge concentration of military camps and hospitals. There were miles and miles of army-issued tents arranged precisely in regimental units throughout the pine trees. He was directed to a large round canvas shelter, about five hundred yards from the sandy seashore. He was to share it with eighteen other men and did not look forward to sleeping on the hard wooden floor. The one luxury, however, was the opportunity to take a hot shower in one of the converted factories.
For several days Jim was detailed to burial duty while he waited for his transportation to England. Spanish flu was a final lethal insult to many men who had survived poison gas and shrapnel during the war, only to be killed after it was over, by a virus. Each day sick men were placed in cots at the front end of the influenza tents. As their illness progressed, they were moved towards the other end of the tent, then finally to a deathbed. Men coughed up blood, and suffered through uncontrolled hemorrhaging. Their faces took a bluish tinge as they slowly suffocated. The mortally ill patients were removed from that end of the tent when they died, and quickly buried. Jim was humbly reminded of how close they came to losing Georgie to this deadly illness.
When Jim finally heard that he would leave for England on January sixteenth, he wrote to Annie.
My dear wife Annie,
Hallelujah, I have word that I will leave for England on the sixteenth. It has been a long wait to get back to Old Blighty. Camp here has not been too uncomfortable but our meals are monotonous. We get bacon, bread, jam, tea and cheese for almost every meal. The odd time they ship over some beef, we finally get our fill. Your mother would have wondered why they didn’t feed us fish when we are right here at a fishing port. I can imagine how she’d scold those in charge of our rations! It will be wonderful for you to have your mother near you again. I know you have sorely missed her.
I have stayed well and avoided catching the Spanish flu so far. We have lost a shocking number of men to this deadly disease. I’ve watched many men suffer through it and I can’t help but think of our three boys who were just as sick. It is a miracle that they survived. I guess the boys here just don’t have their own mothers to help them pull through.
I believe that I will be in Surrey, at Witley Camp, when we get to England, and I hope that I will get the time to go up to South Shields to visit Mother before leaving for Canada. I heard that we get two weeks leave once we complete our documentation, and I expect to be in England for a month. Perhaps I’ll be home by the end of February. I’ll be counting the hours until I have you in my arms again. I miss our boys and send them my love. I will write again when I get to Surrey.
Love, Jim
Jim arrived in the tin city of Witley Military Camp, in Surrey, on January sixteenth as planned. When he found his assigned building and entered, he was greeted by a disgruntled soldier.
“Not another man for here. We’re bloody crowded as it is! Welcome, mate, to a drafty corner of the floor. The coal’s scarce, the hut’s cold, we’ve thin, miserly blankets and horrible rations. It’s a right pleasant spot of heaven, it is.” He sighed, “I’ve been here a month and still no hope of sailing home. I get a promise, and then the sailing is cancelled. Then just today, I heard that some fresh conscripts - who didn’t even finish training nor see a battle - got to go home ahead of me! I’ve been in the war since 1916, and I get treated like this!”
Another man butted in, “Give over, Bill. This poor bloke has just come over from Mons. Give him a break.”
Bill was a tall, thin man with a receding hairline. He leaned on a cane for support and said to Jim, “Sorry, mate. I’m just frustrated about missing another ship home.”
Jim replied, “No offence taken, Bill. I’ve grown a thick hide.” He reached into his canvas sack and pulled out a box of Annie’s baking.
“Here, have some of my wife’s shortbread. Maybe it’ll sweeten your mood.”
Jim stayed at Witley Camp for two weeks. Bill was right, it was miserable accommodation. When the men received orders to report to Knotty Ash Camp, near Liverpool, none were sorry to leave Witley. It was a long, cold march through Reading, Birmingham, and Rhyl, and the men suffered more discomfort in the steady wet drizzle, but they were heartened to be getting closer to the Liverpool port, their gateway home.
Jim had delayed writing to Annie for a couple of weeks because he wanted to give her his sailing date. Now he sat down on his cot, searched through his bag for paper and, began a letter.
Dear Annie,
I’ve been here near Liverpool for over two weeks now. I’m sorry to say that I still don’t have a sailing date yet. They try to keep us busy with drill and sports but we all just want to get home. I have filled out over a dozen documents now, answering tedious questions. I will have my discharge medical soon, then I will have two weeks off and can take the train north to visit Mother.
At present I am quite miserable with a very swollen, painful jaw. I took advantage of the free dental services offered to us here before demobilization and had three molars extracted at one time and without any pain killers! Had I known that it would involve such torture during and after the operations I would not have agreed to it!
The plan, apparently, is to get all our documentation completed here before we ship out, so we can get home all the quicker once we are on Canadian soil. I do know that I will be on a ship that will take troops to Halifax, and then we will take the train to Toronto.
Even though they split up our northern regiment once we arrived in England, the men from the North will be a group again as we head home. There are men here in camp from many towns of New Ontario, so I’m pretty sure that we will be travelling together.
This military camp that I’m in now is American. It’s a small city of hastily erected huts with serviceable streets and sidewalks. Some Americans in the camp have only been in England for eight months, and I met a few who were here for just nine days. It’s very difficult to be civil when I still have the mud of the Western Front on my boots, but then again I just want to forget the war. I’ve been having nightmares. Although my body is here, my mind is still in the battlefield. I won’t report that when I have my medical because it may delay my departure. But hop
efully once I’m home again I’ll be able to escape the war memories.
I hope to see you in February, but I’ll let you know when my sailing date is as soon as the army decides to tell me. I send my love to you and our boys.
Your husband, Jim
Jim mailed his letter, and then joined some mates for a pint. While enjoying his beer at a table with other men from Canada, one soldier elbowed him.
“I suppose we had better enjoy our alcohol while we can. I hear that Canada is still dry, thanks to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It makes no sense to dole out rum rations on the front and expect us to be happy with abstinence once we get back home!”
Jim shook his head and replied, “I hadn’t thought of that. It makes this beer taste all the better right now!”
On the following day, Jim had the medical examination that was required before his discharge. A simple three-letter word, fit, would be his ticket to get home. Jim breathed a sigh of relief when he read it in his documents. He filed his application for his war service gratuity and was pleased to see that as a married man with his length of service, he qualified for five hundred dollars. He had all his documents ready for demobilization and just had to wait to be assigned a ship. The delay was further complicated with many strikes by dock workers, police officers and railway employees throughout England.
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