by Paul Almond
By his side, a soldier lay with both legs shattered above the knee. Would he rather live or die, Jack wondered. What must it be like to lie, day after day, looking into such a dark future, knowing you would always be a burden. Pain brought no groan from his pale, feverish lips, but tears began to trickle down his sunburned cheeks. He moved his head and covered his face with his hands, ashamed, as Jack knelt. He reached out to hold the man’s hand, bowing his head and praying, more for himself than the soldier, “Lord, give him courage... Let me take what strength I can from this hero.” He spoke a few words of comfort and rested with him, scarcely sufficient, he knew, but sharing the pain.
One glance at the next body was enough. The now unbandaged hole on the side of his forehead spoke of a leaden messenger that had called him to a painful ascent into the great Beyond, before Jack could even comfort him with prayers. By his side lay another who would never more behold the light of day: some Mauser had shot away his nose and right eye, while the left was so injured, yes — probably in one rending, blinding, stinging flash — he’d been sent to walk in darkness. The man lay on his back with a stained bandage round his head as groans heaved from his lungs. How could these men ever say, “Thy will be done”? But Jack knelt, and prayed with them a good spell.
All was not silence in the tent. Across the aisle, one wild soldier lay in the grip of delirium. His voice, now loud and harsh, now soft and gentle, muttered as a child by his mother’s knee: “Now I lay me down to sleep...” Then in some drunken argument, he poured forth such oaths that Jack involuntarily covered his ears. Then he loosed words of wonder as he wandered down some river path: phrases to a sweetheart probably awaiting him, but who would never see him again. As Jack went over, the man stretched out his hands: “I’m coming.” Jack stopped short. No more delirium, no more pain or suffering — “I’m coming, Lord!” he yelled, “I’m coming!” And that moment, the Lord in all mercy took him off to a happier realm.
Jack came out of that tent, and who should he see, with arm bandaged, sitting in another tent opening, having a smoke — Eamon McAndrews.
“Well Eamon, they got you too?”
“Aye, a Mauser they said. Paardeberg. The second battle. That was some fight, Padre.”
Jack knew what was required: let them speak their pain. “Can you tell me about it, Eamon?”
He nodded, stubbed out his cigarette, and leaned back. “Well first, you had to make it through that first one. Bugler Williamson of C company — he was the fella, Padre. After that damn stupid colonel yelled, he stood up out there right in the open and he blew the charge, long and loud — it sure drove us forward, we had t’ leave our wounded where they fell. I tripped, and just as well, cause right overhead I hear them pings of bullets. Ahead, they kep’ their rush, protected by some magic, it seemed, Padre...” He paused and blinked back a tear, “And you know, some pierced that terrible hail of death and still they lost out, right at the end, gone, my cousin among them. To get to their trenches, Padre, you had to charge a quarter of a mile! Over veldt just as flat as our skating rink in Dingwall, not a mound between us anywhere, for sure. You’d a asked me to go even a hundred yards, I’da’ said, not possible.”
“Do they know yet how many...?”
“Twenty killed and maybe sixty wounded in that first battle. Sure and ’twas a heavy-hearted regiment lay down that night. We all said prayers for them fellas who, though worn out, just that morning had jumped up when they heard reveille, ready for the fray and now, poor buggers, rotting out there on the hot sand...” He opened his eyes, turned to Jack, and proceeded to light another cigarette, “What we went through for another whole ten days, out on that veldt before the second battle. Such icy rain, time after time, and that cold...”
Well, this desert plateau was a mile high, unlike anything he’d known at home, Jack thought. “And the dead, did they get buried?”
“Father O’Leary, bless his soul, he’d been up all night under those fusillades, roaming, searching for wounded... Yeah, he performed burials. Bunch of graves down by a growth of trees near the river. I helped dig a big one, Padre. Seventeen bodies, they put em down, side by side.”
Yes, thought Jack, Peter O’Leary, good for him, God bless him! But still, he felt a real pang of guilt for missing it himself.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jack couldn’t leave. Eamon McAndrews still sat in front of his tent, smoking: drawing so deeply on his cigarette as though the smoke were his breath of life. Jack squatted, leaned forward, cupped some sand in his hand and let it flow through his fingers like the blood that had ebbed from so many veins. Should he keep listening? Could he? He made himself. Had he himself crossed that Modder with the men, might he have made their endings any easier? No time for those thoughts now. The men needed a listener, and a listener he would be.
In the low light of the lantern, Eamon went on, “Pompom Tuesday,”
“Pompom Tuesday?”
Eamon nodded. “We lay out that day under a scorching sun, aiming at whatever moved. But Padre, when they got out their one pounder, a Vickers Maxim, twelve one pound shells in a belt — rattled off in that many seconds... The pom-pom! Sounds like that, you know.”
He lapsed into silence. Jack had heard talk of this terrifying gun. But not from a man who had endured it himself.
“Terble, Padre, it was terble. Took the spirit right out of us. How could we win against that? We lay there, baking, thirsty — dying of thirst in fact, and we wondered.... what can we do? That pompom just kept right on, firing. I thought, thank God I’m still alive. After a bit, I learned to count twelve and I’d poke my head up and let the bastards have it again. But I hope never to live another day like that. And so cold at night — you’ve heard the talk? At three in the morning, it passed right through your sopping wet flesh, it grabbed at your innards...”
Jack nodded: he’d heard of the repeated storms that had burst over them during that awful week before the second battle. Wet and deathly cold, the soldiers lay below lightning flashes followed by violent crashes of thunder, lighting up battles below with shivering electric extravaganzas. How chill that wind must have blown....
“Hungry all the time. Your whole system cried out for some fish, or vegetables, and salt. And all the time, relieving ourselves, time after time, however you could do it without being shot, dysentery, diarrhea — well, we all suffered.”
Jack shook his head.
Eamon stubbed out his cigarette and stretched. “Now water, of course we had plenty of that,” he said, with a snappy crispness.
“You did?” Jack frowned.
“Let me tell you about our water, all right, Padre? The river — they drew it from the river. And we was well below that there Boer laager, as they called their camp. And by and by, I guess when them Boers could no longer stand the smell of their rotting carcasses, well, they threw their animals into the stream! So our water had, well, sort of a sweetish taste.”
Jack grimaced.
“Oh yes sir. Later, I would stand on the bank and count thirty or forty dead horses or oxen... their hair rotted off, blue I guess with decay, and gangs of our soldiers working to move them on... so many carcasses, so rotted they broke in pieces when they pushed them off the rocks.” He paused, and grinned. “Well, Padre, then,” he paused again, “then the water had an even sweeter taste.”
Jack could hardly believe his ears.
“And then,” almost triumphantly, “afterwards, when I heard a pile of dead Boers, well, ninety in fact, were hauled out in one day as they floated down, that’s when that beverage got pretty tasty, Padre. I could almost hear my mum say, “One lump or two, son?’”
Jack felt sick; he needed to light his briar, too.
Eamon coughed and frowned. “Better hit the cot, Padre, can’t face it any more — because after what, a week or ten days? Monday afternoon, yes, word came of the big night attack.”
“That was it, then, the second battle?”
Eamon nodded. “That’s when i
t came: the big Battle of Paardeberg.”
* * *
The next morning Jack arrived at Big George’s tent, and peered in. George lay still, his wound newly dressed, a rough blanket over his body. Had he ceased breathing?
Jack came over, sat down, and placed a hand on George’s shoulder. The farm boy stirred and opened his eyes.
“Not long, Padre... before I go meet my Lord.”
What could Jack say? Better not disagree; leave all him all his strength for telling the rest of his tale. “I’ve come with my pen, George. I’m ready.”
George gave a barely perceptible nod. Jack could see that he was summoning up all his energy.
“Look, George, you don’t have to tell me now, I can come back. I’ve heard part of the story, I’ve made notes — ”
“No no,” he gasped. “I’ve got to tell it, Jack. They’ve got to know. For the future...”
Jack put out a hand to calm him, and leaned forward.
“We’d been on a kopje, we called it ’Starvation Kopje’ for two days and nights, and we were all so hungry. Around six on Monday, we marched upstream.” He paused, gathering himself. “At eight, we went in single file through pretty heavy undergrowth till we got to our forward trench. We lay down and got what sleep we could. At two they woke us up, and we had to fix bayonets... That meant one thing...” His eyes glazed and Jack wondered, could he finish this? Was he leaving now? Was this it?
Then his head turned and his eyes focussed again. “The rear rank got picks and shovels. Over the trench we went. Pitch black. So we grabbed a holt o’ the next fella or his rifle, so’s to keep ranks, eh? And we crept forward, quiet as possible. Never a word ’cept for whispered commands.”
In spite of himself, Jack felt the excitement grow. He was right there beside Big George, and said so.
George nodded. “We kep’ goin’, we knew some of us would never come back, but we kep’ on. The fellas behind, they followed, picks and shovels at the ready, rifles slung. What was going to happen?” He winced and closed his eyes.
George’s voice grew louder: every spit of energy was rising into the telling. Was this shortening George’s life? But George had given him a writing job to do, and do it he must.
“Well, without warning, the Boers started shooting. They poured on such a pile of lead right into us. Murderous, Padre, right as we were advancing. That’s when I got it in the leg. Burned like hell. We all dropped. The bullets,” he mumbled, “the bullets, they was everywhere, coming at us, I heard them snap through the air and ping off the rocks. They went past us, they struck, I never seen the like, Jack.”
Nor had anyone, thought Jack: unique in all Canadian experience.
“Everyone hugged that ground so tight. Behind us, we heard the fellas digging in like crazy. Volley after volley, right through us. Unearthly, Padre, the crack of those flying bullets and the thump of those Krupp guns. Like the furies after us. I just lay and waited for my turn to come, but it didn’t.”
George lay quiet for a while. Jack reached out and smoothed his forehead with a cloth, bathed as it was in sweat. Big George gathered himself.
“Word came from the rear, the boys had dug a trench deep enough. We wriggled back, under all those bullets.
“The stretcher-bearers, in the dark, they grabbed the wounded, hauled them back there too. Gruesome, Padre. By a flickering candle, Fiset, he was right with us, doing his best. Had to blow out the candle because it drew action.” George motioned and Jack gave him a sip of water. “You heard it all, Padre, the loud prayers, the cursing and angry screams... I even heard blood gurgle up and cut one poor fella off. Awful, even now, just an awful nightmare.
“Well, we kept firing, I’ll tell you. My leg was hurting, by now, oh yes, it hurt like hell, but I wasn’t going to let them know that. I kept putting my head up and taking a shot wherever I saw the flash of a gun. I got a few of them... And then some damn piece of shrapnel from a Krupp 75 ripped into my stomach. That was it.
“I stayed, numb, hurting like the dickens, but firing when I could, in that trench till dawn broke. Then we could see — my Lord! Jack, we were so close — probably fifty paces. So we waited for the order to charge with bayonets. I knew I couldn’t, I couldn’t move, or even stand. But I was ready, I was so ready...”
He seemed to lose his train of thought. His breaths were getting shorter. Not much strength left. Jack prayed that he could get it all out, not only for Annie and his farmer friends, but to relieve his soul.
“And you know what? Someone shouted. Look! A white rag tied to a rifle barrel! Waving. Jack, waving! From a Boer trench. Surrender? No — watch out, could be a trick! But them Boers started coming out, man after man, they threw their rifles on the ground. Padre, we’d won.”
Tears gathered in Jack’s eyes as he finished writing.
“We’d won, Padre.”
“Yes, Big George, you won. Everyone knows it. And I’ve got it all here. Written down.” He wiped his face. What an ordeal. Just hearing it.
These last words seemed to let George relax.
Jack put down his pen and turned his head to look down at his friend. For some reason, George also turned and looked up at Jack. Their eyes met.
For one enormously long moment, Jack stared into those eyes. How deeply he looked into that soul! George longed to remain on earth. What a vast and utter despair at never seeing his beloved Annie again! Nor his little girls. That look said everything. Then thankfully, George turned away. And then was still. Deathly still.
Jack dropped his eyes, folded the paper, mumbled a short prayer, touched the rough, lifeless hand for a long moment, and rushed out of the hospital tent. He hurried, for some odd reason, out into the darkness, any darkness. Going down an incline, he tripped, fell into a shallow donga. He remained motionless, and tears started down his face.
The harder he tried to stop crying, the more they came. How he hated to say goodbye to this friend, yes, hated it. And this whole horrible war. He’d been holding himself in for so long; he’d tried so hard to stop the pain from reaching into his soul and twisting his heart. He had a job to do, after all. But one young lad after another, some teenagers, some his own age, some older, all going off to meet their end...
He crouched, curled over, rocked forward till his head touched the ground, and let a wild yell escape his throat. Chaplain Jack just let himself go.
What was it about this war? Why had it all started so well — and then ended so badly? And not even ended. It was still going on. So much more to face. So many more on their way out of this life and into the next. And all for what?
How he wished he were back in the Old Homestead, in Shigawake. How he longed for his safe parishes in Northern Quebec. When someone was old they died and you attended the family and you preached at their burial. But day after day this sorrowful ascent of youthful souls, one after another, and you doing your best to help them — it was all too much. Finally, just much too much.
He pounded the earth, tense and angry. Then he stayed frozen. Oh God, he prayed, why put me through this? Why?
At last, he found himself relaxing. He rolled over on his back and stared into the sky. There, the comforting Southern Cross marked the heavens with its celestial benediction. Blessing him too, he guessed. Yes, we all have our wounded ways to walk. And walk them we must. He lay for a long time, and then, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, dried his face, coughed, and sat up.
Back to the tent, back to duty, and back to the war.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jack buried Big George the next morning outside Orange River Junction, and tried again to rejoin his regiment. But trains kept on coming with their loads of damaged humanity. Who should Jack see next, alighting on the platform, but his friend, Stanley Brown, the correspondent for the Mail and Empire. Stanley had marched with them, eaten with them, slept with them, and Jack knew he’d have news. “Stanley,” he called out.
Stanley brightened. He hurried over, held out his hand. “Padre!
Good to see you. How have you been making out down here?”
Jack shook his head. “Sorry state of affairs.”
“I guess you wish you’d been with the boys.”
Jack nodded. “But what a need for me here: so many lads passing in their last days on earth. Some even their last moments.”
The two friends walked along the platform. “But what are you doing here, Stanley? Giving it all up? Going back?”
“No siree. I just wanted to see how our Royal Canadians are doing in hospitals back in De Aar.”
Jack offered to show him around, but Stanley asked, “You don’t happen to know where a man can get a bite first?”
The two walked to the canteen. Over a mug of tea and some hard tack, Stanley launched into what he’d seen, recently, especially after the surrender. Jack got out his pencil. “Funny me taking notes and you doing the talking. But you see, I promised Big George I’d get down this account for his family.”
“George Dorsey? How is he?”
“Buried this morning.” Jack paused, squeezed his eyes shut. Stanley nodded in sympathy.
“But not before I heard his side of Paardeberg, Stanley. What happened after that white flag went up. Were you there?”
Stanley nodded. “Once they surrendered, I was allowed to go forward.” Stanley broke his hard tack into his tea, fished out a chunk and popped it in his mouth. “At first I wondered, is this really over? This terrifying procession of death? Can our boys finally draw a deep breath, without it being their last?
“Then I saw the enemy come up from below ground, Jack, like the last trumpet had blown the great reveille. Out they scrambled: dirty, ragged, ill-fitting clothes, as if called back from the dead. As they marched past I saw the true Boer: shambling along, casting sharp glances right and left from under his old felt hat, drawn well down. I picked out some blonde foreigners, maybe a Swede or German...