The Other Side of the Bridge

by Mary Lawson

  Everybody’s real fed up with doing nothing, though. They’ve got us in these stupid little tents, whenever the wind blows they collapse. They keep sending us on training courses—we must be the best-trained army in the whole damned war. We just want a chance to show what we can do.

  1940 came and went, and still none of the boys from the Struan area had seen a single minute of action. Arthur stopped feeling quite so guilty about being at home. No one had handed him a white feather or crossed the road to avoid speaking to him—everyone knew he had tried to enlist. It seemed he was doing more to support the war effort than his friends were. At least he was producing food. In fact he was probably feeding them. Carl and the others could be eating a ham sandwich right this minute: ham, bread, and butter all thanks to him. He imagined the whole crowd of them, Carl, Eric, Gunter, Ted, Jude, and the rest, squatting on their haunches in their useless little tents while they ate their sandwiches. He missed them, all of them, but especially Carl. The country seemed empty without them.

  People at home, farmers in particular, were having a tougher time than their troops were. The Dunns didn’t fare badly—with Arthur still being at home they were no worse off than before the war—but many were having a real struggle. Otto and Gertie, for instance: when they gave the boys their blessing to go off to war the country was crawling with out-of-work men looking for farm laboring jobs, but then, almost overnight, the men were gone. They’d all enlisted too, or gone to war-related jobs that paid real money.

  Otto had a tractor, which meant he could cover a fair amount of ground, but the Luntzes’ farm was bigger than the Dunns’ and was more than one man could manage, even if he had a whole fleet of tractors. Gertie couldn’t help; she had a big vegetable plot and chickens and pigs and a few cows for milking—there just weren’t any more hours in her day. So Otto was on his own, out there in the fields. Early mornings, if the wind was in the right direction, Arthur could hear the tractor, and it seemed to him it had a lonely sound.

  He and his father helped out as much as they could, but even with the three of them working together, stooking at ten o’clock at night sometimes, the stooks throwing huge spooky shadows in the narrow beam of the tractor’s headlights, they couldn’t get it all in. Waste. It was frustrating. For the past ten years there had been no market for anything and cheap labor to burn, and now, suddenly, there was a market for everything but no one left to gather it in. And the government kept on at them about increasing their production. Grow more food! Mother England needed food! She needed ham and cheese, millions of pounds of it, and eggs (powdered) and milk (condensed), and wheat and flour and just about everything else you could think of.

  In the spring of 1941 Otto came over one night with a proposition. The boys were still in England, going crazy with boredom, and Otto had spent the winter thinking things over. It looked as if the war might drag on for a while and even with help from Arthur and his father there was just no way he could work all his fields. He was anxious not to let them go to ruin. He wanted the farm to be in good shape for the boys when they got home.

  “I vunder if you take some of my fields?” he said. He was sitting at the kitchen table. Arthur’s mother had given him a mug of tea and he wrapped his big red hands around it, the fingernails so split and blackened they looked like chips of wood. What he wondered, he said, was if they’d like to take on some of his land and turn it over to pasture so that they could increase their dairy herd. He was going to concentrate on pigs. He’d keep about half his acreage for barley for the pigs—he could manage half of it all right. The Dunns could make proper use of the rest and keep it in good order by doing so, and maybe pay him a bit of rent if they were able. Then when the war was over and his boys came home, everything could go back to normal. If Arthur and his father found at that stage that they had too many heifers, they could sell some and make a tidy profit, or maybe even buy some more land. What did they think?

  Arthur and his father looked at each other. They’d been wondering if they should buy a few more heifers. Two years ago it would have been out of the question, but thanks to the war they had a little money now. Not much, grant you—the government gave it with one hand and took it back in taxes with the other—but still, for the first time ever, they had a little real cash. Cash, which you could hold in your hand, and count, and use to pay off the debt from Jake’s medical bills, which they had now almost done. If the war lasted, and there was no sign that it was going to end anytime soon, they would be able to sell any amount of milk. There would be money enough to rent some of Otto’s land and buy a few heifers. Maybe even their own bull. And when the war ended, well, they would see.

  Otto was looking from one to the other of them. Arthur couldn’t help noticing, couldn’t suppress a small surge of pride that Mr. Luntz recognized that he was part of the picture now. His mother was sitting in the chair by the stove knitting socks for the boys overseas, listening, but staying out of it. Not too long ago she would have been at the table herself, but she seemed happy now to leave things to the two of them. Jake had come into the room at some stage—Arthur noticed him, leaning against the wall, watching them—but he didn’t stay long. He was not part of the picture, needless to say. But then, Arthur reasoned, trying to quell the guilt that the mere sight of Jake always raised in him, he had never wanted to be.

  “You vant to tink about it?” Mr. Luntz said anxiously.

  “Guess we’ve done thinking,” Arthur’s father said, and Arthur nodded, and Otto smiled, and the three of them finished their tea and pulled on their boots and went out to look at Otto’s land, which was lying pale and peaceful in the moonlight.

  August 1942. Otto and Gertie Luntz received two telegrams in one day.

  Arthur’s mother was beside herself. “How can I face Gertie?” she said, fiercely brushing away the tears she felt she had no right to shed. “What can I say to her? What can I possibly say?”

  Arthur’s stomach had gone cold when he heard the news and he was ashamed of his relief when it turned out that Carl was okay, it was Eric and Gunter who had been killed. Fighting for Canada, the home of their birth. They’d finally left England, all the boys from Struan together, as part of the Royal Regiment of Canada assault force. They landed on the beach at the German-held port of Dieppe and Gunter and Eric were killed the moment they set foot on the ground. They were not the only casualties, by any means. Nearly half the households in Struan got a telegram that day, and many others across the country. The papers were full of it. COURAGE UNDER FIRE! VALUABLE LESSONS LEARNED. OUR GLORIOUS BOYS!

  The following day the Luntzes received another telegram, informing them that Carl was missing. The day after that a fourth arrived, saying that he was dead.

  Arthur’s mother, now beyond tears, went over to the farm again. There was smoke coming from behind the barn so she went to check on it before going into the house. Otto was there. He had made a big pile of driftwood sticks and was burning them. He didn’t look around as she approached. She said, “Otto?” and then realized that the sticks were not just sticks but the antlers Carl had spent his childhood carving. Her horror was so great that she could not speak. She turned and went home, out to the fields, and found her husband and dragged him back to the Luntzes’ farm, to stand beside Otto and help him watch the antlers burn. Then she went into the farmhouse to look for Gertie. She found her sitting in a kitchen full of smoke—a rhubarb pie was burning in the oven; she must have put it in just before the final telegram arrived. Arthur’s mother took the blackened pie out of the oven, put it outside the back door, and then sat down beside Gertie, who looked at her without recognition and said, “Tell them.”

  “Tell them what, Gertie?” she said fearfully, her voice a whisper.

  “Tell them no more telegrams. I don’t vant more telegrams.”

  “No,” Arthur’s mother said. “No, Gertie. There will be no more telegrams.”

  There were thoughts that wouldn’t leave Arthur alone. He would wake in the night wonderi
ng if Carl had known, before he died, that Eric and Gunter were dead. Had he seen them fall? Or had he been ahead of them, maybe, and looked back, and found they were no longer there? Run back for them. Tried to drag them to safety. Then Arthur would start wondering how Carl himself had died. Whether someone had been with him at the end, one of the other guys from Struan, or a friend he’d made in the army. Or if he had died alone, lying on a beach, or in some field that had been pounded to paste, a swamp of mud and bodies like in the photographs you saw of the Great War. Died at night, maybe, in agony, with no one around. Stupid, pointless thoughts, which didn’t help anybody, but he couldn’t get them out of his head.

  Then at other times—and this was almost worse—he’d forget. He’d be out in the fields working away, and he’d think, It’s Friday, it’ll be good to go into town with Carl tomorrow night, see all the guys.

  Reverend Gordon, the Presbyterian minister, went off to be with the troops. He had a young family and there was his flock in Struan to consider, many of whom were grieving for lost fathers and sons, but with such carnage overseas his conscience would no longer permit him to stay at home. Across the country, churches were appealing to old ministers to come out of retirement and fill the empty spaces, but in the meantime the church elders did their best, laboring over sermons into the night and reading them out at the Sunday service.

  The government decreed that older students at the country’s secondary schools would be released from their studies to help on farms, especially during the harvest. (At last, in Arthur’s opinion, they had their priorities right.) The problem was, most of them were town boys who didn’t know one end of a cow from another, and anyway there weren’t enough to go around.

  Arthur and his father joined forces with Otto, as they had agreed. The purpose behind their agreement—to keep the Luntz farm in good order for the boys—had died with Carl and his brothers, but it went against nature to neglect a farm. Otto worked like an automaton, as if someone had wound him up and set him running. Arthur and his father feared for him. Feared he would kill himself with work. Feared that was his goal. But still there was much that needed doing that didn’t get done.

  Jake didn’t help, of course. Jake was exempted from farmwork. From any work, in fact. His limp excused him from everything. There were a thousand chores he could easily have done, but somehow there was no question of him doing them. He had changed since his accident. Or maybe it was the rest of them: Arthur and his father, and even his mother—maybe they were the ones who had changed. Whichever, it was understood that Jake no longer owed anybody anything. His broken bones had paid for all his sins—past, present, and future—and from here on he was a free agent.

  In some ways it made things easier. If Jake wasn’t expected to do anything, there was no friction with his father when he failed to do it. He seemed more cheerful than he used to be, though he didn’t spend any more time at home than he had to. “How’s everyone?” he would say when they sat down for supper. “Everyone had a nice day?” It was clear that he didn’t expect an answer and wouldn’t have cared what it was, but at least he asked the question. Arthur would nod and their mother would start prattling away about the local gossip and their father, though he didn’t respond, at least didn’t give him a sharp look. It was as if Jake were a guest, someone who didn’t intend to stay long but was prepared to be polite while he was there. Just don’t interfere with his life, that was all. It was clear to Arthur that their mother hadn’t quite grasped that yet.

  “Jake, honey, I’ve had a letter from Mr. Wheeler.”

  Arthur, sitting outside on the back doorstep searching through a jar of nuts and bolts, heard the anxiety in her voice. Mr. Wheeler was the school principal.

  “He wants me to come and see him. Do you know what it’s about? Is everything all right at school?”

  Silence. Probably a shrug from Jake.

  “But what would it be about, Jakey?”

  “Dunno. Wheeler’s an old fool. Just don’t bother going, Mum.”

  “Oh, but Jake…” her voice trying for a firmness she no longer seemed to possess.

  “Gotta go, Mum. See you later.”

  It turned out that Jake had cheated on a test. How could he do such a thing? Why would he do such a thing, when he was so clever that he didn’t need to? That was what she couldn’t understand. Mr. Wheeler said gravely that because of Jake’s accident they would be lenient this time, but if it happened again he would be expelled.

  Jake denied it, of course. He said a boy in his class had made it up, a boy who had it in for him.

  He was nearly sixteen now, almost as tall as Arthur but thin as a rake, and better-looking than ever. His limp did him no harm with girls; Arthur knew that for a fact. No harm at all. It didn’t matter who they were, how old, or where they came from, Jake could make them light up like candles. Arthur saw him after church one Sunday, chatting to the Miller girls and their mother. Mr. Miller was manager of the Hudson’s Bay store, and he and his wife, who was blond and plump and still pretty, though she must have been nearly forty, had three daughters, ranging in age, Arthur guessed, from about ten to eighteen. Jake was standing with them on the church steps, talking to them, making big gestures with his arms. Arthur heard him say, “And if I hit it, it would fall off and douse the grasses, and there’d be this great whoosh of flame….” And Mrs. Miller and all three girls started laughing, their eyes fixed raptly on Jake’s face. It was only the eldest girl that Jake was interested in, but he was busy charming all of them, just because he could.

  Not just charming them, either. Arthur went into the barn late one afternoon and heard a sound, and paused, trying to identify it. Hot dusty light slanted through cracks in the boards and the air was thick with the smell of cattle. He heard the sound again: Jake’s voice, very low. He was up in the loft and the words sifted down with the sunlight. Low though they were, Arthur could hear them plain as day.

  “Put your hand there.” You could even hear the smile in his voice. “There. That’s right.” His voice became thick as the dust.

  Arthur stood rooted to the floor of the barn. He couldn’t understand what he was hearing. Or rather, he understood it perfectly, but he couldn’t believe it was Jake. That Jake could say such things to a girl. He felt suddenly sick with lust and longing. He was twenty-one and hadn’t touched a girl in his life.

  Jake still suffered pain sometimes. Usually in the evening. Arthur could tell by the way he kept shifting his position, trying to get comfortable. He would stand up, walk around, sit down again. Move his shoulders restlessly. He never complained about it though. Arthur almost wished he would. Jake’s stoicism made him feel worse.

  He was no longer waiting, hour by hour, for Jake to tell their parents what had happened on the bridge. He didn’t know why the axe hadn’t fallen, but it hadn’t, and it didn’t feel imminent. Maybe Jake was biding his time. Hoarding the revelation, like money in the bank. Or maybe he didn’t intend to tell them directly, maybe he had decided that it was more valuable to have something to hold over Arthur. A debt that he could call in when the time was right.

  “The Jackson boy is home,” Arthur’s mother said, piling potatoes onto her husband’s plate. “But he’s lost an arm, according to Annie. And Stan and Helen Wallace’s boy is still not well enough to travel.” She piled the beans and carrots high—one good thing about living on a mixed farm was that food rationing didn’t affect them. But her lips were tight. Arthur noticed that little lines radiated out around them as if she’d pursed them too often lately, at too much bad news. “The thing is, you get used to it. We’re all getting used to it. Is this enough, Henry?” A nod from Arthur’s father. “To hearing these things, I mean. No one takes any notice anymore. It’s as if all these deaths and all these horrible injuries are…normal. You hardly even feel shocked anymore. It’s terrible. You should at least feel shocked! Pass me your plate, Arthur.” She began forking fat slices of beef onto Arthur’s plate.

  “And you know wha
t else? They’re turning Hamborough—what used to be Hamborough—into a prison for prisoners of war. They’re sending German prisoners all the way over here and putting them in special camps. Some of them are being sent to the prison in Monteith. Jake, how much meat would you like?”

  “Just a slice,” Jake said. “Hamborough? You mean the old ghost town?”

  “Yes. Some of the buildings are still good, apparently. So they’re putting the prisoners there. I don’t think it’s a good idea. What if they escape? Are you sure you can’t eat another slice, Jakey?”

  Jake flinched. He hated it when she called him that. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Well have lots of potatoes.” She ladled potatoes onto his plate. “I don’t think having escaped prisoners roaming around the woods is a good idea.”

  “Won’t there be guards?” Jake said. “That’s too much, Mum. I can’t eat all that.”

  “Try,” his mother said, gently urging. She worried about him all the time, Arthur knew. Every minute of the day. The war, the death of the Luntz boys, hadn’t changed that. In fact, it had made things worse: with boys dying by the thousands, how could hers be spared? Fate must have something else in store for them. Specifically for Jake: Jake was the one she worried about. Arthur understood that. It had always been so, and now more than ever. He didn’t blame her. Jake was always in the background of his mind too. A shadow, tinged with guilt.