Clockwork Canada

by Dominik Parisien

  True, there are doubts now. In Ottawa he is no longer the hero. Millions of dollars spent on the survey West, then a sudden shift in government policy that stripped him of his Canadian Pacific Railway commission; and now they want a private company to complete the project. Fleming was taking too long to reach British Columbia, they said; a reckless election promise, impossible to keep. The injustice is almost a physical pain. The larger picture, though, the expansion of the Empire – no one can take that from him. He is here, now, in this beautiful, improbable country that calls itself always in perpetuity a New Founde Lande; what better place to be?

  Fleming remounts the Theodolite. The instant his weight settles into the saddle, she rises up on the tips of her clever legs. He settles his feet into the stirrups, hooks his left elbow through the bridle.

  Riding her is not easy. Manny surrendered the honour to Fleming with visible reluctance. Her plumb line indicates she is level; he checks the spirit levels, makes some minute adjustments of the thumbscrews on the centring plate. He peers through the eyepiece, takes his measurement, and calls out to the others that he is done. Then he urges his steed forward, on to the next triangulation.

  It cuts surveying time in half, or better, this machine. On uneven terrain she needs to walk slowly, making sure the measurement chains go taut with each stride. A meter keeps count; Fleming glances at the numbers as they tick over, and keeps his own tally. But the joy and sheer muscular work of guiding the steed on her thaumaturgical legs almost carries him away from the gravity of what he is doing. There is something marvellous about working one’s way through territory, about being the first of the Empire to put a mark upon a place. He has tried to analyze the phenomenon in himself. It is a passion, a mingling of protectiveness, ownership, and an almost violent desire to crack open the land’s secret life.

  Fleming sees the flash of a bird’s wing; a raven takes off with a knowing croak. High above, three young bald eagles wheel.

  This island will make a beautiful landing for European passengers on their way to New York and beyond…

  His peripheral vision picks up movement, off to his right. A shape, a great black shape, slips in and out of dark spaces, sliding between spruce trees. He cannot hear it above the noise of the Theodolite. It shadows him. A bear? No, it’s too tall—

  Suddenly, his hand burns. Fleming snatches it to his chest. How could he have been so careless as to touch the boiler?

  He grinds the Theodolite to a halt.

  But it’s impossible. The boiler is behind and beneath him.

  The shadow, the creature, if it was ever there, has vanished.

  He looks at his hand. It is the same palm that inexplicably wracked him with pain last year, after the collapse of the CPR project. His weakness, pain, the amnesiac opium dreams: Jeanie had almost worried herself sick over this unexplainable illness. Nothing had ever felled Fleming until last year. Until then, he had conducted surveys and driven spikes for railroads from Halifax to British Columbia, carving virgin territory, accomplishing the impossible. And then that intolerable weakness, dreams, crying out in his sleep that boys were drowning, that his hand was burning, that he heard his own mother’s voice. Sandford, stay away from the water!

  There is nothing – no mark, no redness, nothing.

  As Fleming stares at his hand, the pain radiates up his arm, almost forcing a cry from between his teeth.

  And then, it fades, draining away into the ether.

  * * *

  Days go by, a week.

  “We are making great progress,” Fleming says around that night’s campfire. Dark-haired Jack has cooked them a fine dinner, and set up a comfortable camp. He has kept his distance from the Theodolite, Fleming notes, as if he wants nothing to do with it. Or is he, possibly, afraid of it?

  Fleming doles out tots of rum to all, and toasts, “To the Theodolite!”

  They down the rum. Jack snorts and shakes his head from side to side, a strange series of actions he always repeats when consuming alcohol.

  “So, Mr. Fleming,” Joe asks, “is it true that you rode that thing through the Aroostook River territory, and dazzled the Americans out of almost ten thousand square miles of land?”

  Fleming laughs. “This very one,” he says. “And I wouldn’t say I dazzled the Americans, so much as—

  “Showed them reason!” Edward crows.

  The Pork and Beans War, as it was known, had been dragging on for decades at that point – no real war but a series of skirmishes, with neither Great Britain nor America wanting to step in and alienate the other. But when the Americans threatened violence over the contested area and started stealing Acadian lumber equipment, the Acadian lumbermen actually took a Maine land agent and his assistants hostage. Then the diplomats were, finally, summoned. “It wasn’t just the territory…an extensive census of the inhabitants was conducted as well. But since the Americans didn’t even seem to be able to find the 45th Parallel—”

  The others explode into laughter. “Fort Blunder!” shouts Andrew, referring to the fort the Americans built just after the War of 1812, south of what they’d surveyed as the parallel. The fort had turned out to be three-quarters of a mile inside Canada.

  “Yes. So we were able to prove Great Britain’s superior surveying abilities. Quite simply, the American maps were in error.”

  “Imagine if they’d kept that big chunk of New Brunswick,” Albert muses. “When you built that Intercolonial Railroad from Quebec City to Halifax, you’d have had to go all the way around.”

  “Indeed. That final survey of the U.S.–Canadian border saved the new Canadian government hundreds of miles of track, and millions of dollars. But beyond that, it was a decisive moment. Great Britain signalled to the Americans that they’d not stand for petty wrangling. If two countries are to share the longest undefended border on earth, they’d better become adept at communicating. And if Great Britain had let the Americans walk over them during the Maine incident… Well, they didn’t, and a great deal of that was due to our technological superiority.”

  Fleming remembers riding the Theodolite into Washington. He’d hated to take such a theatrical approach, but he’d had to clearly demonstrate its sheer awesome technological capability, and then compare the rude surveys the Americans had done versus the near-perfect results he was able to achieve.

  “I am an Empire man,” he says into the silence. “We have a common history, culture, instruments. And beyond that, I am a Commonwealth man. If I espouse any political position at all, it is the cause of colonial unification.” His voice gains power. “Through technology, we can and will create a global network of the Commonwealth states. The creation of a greater Canada is only part of the picture. This railroad across Newfoundland will connect Europe to the North American rail system, and thus to the world.”

  “You aim to make Newfoundland part of Canada? My father might have a word with you about that, sir. Me mudder, too,” Edward jokes.

  “It would diminish the length of a voyage from Europe to New York by half, lad,” Manny points out, “if a proper land communication existed between the eastern coast of Newfoundland and the railways of America.”

  The last of the sun’s light has leached from the sky, and the night has become a circle described by firelight, surrounded by great primeval darkness. A log shifts and falls with a soft crackling sound. An owl hoots, to be answered within seconds by another: mates, hunting.

  Fleming takes from his pocket his beautiful, scratched old watch, and, leaning into the firelight, flips it open. “My father gave this to me.” The boys, Joe, Manny, and even silent Jack lean in to look. “Gave it to me when I was eighteen, the day I left Kirkcaldy to sail across the Atlantic and seek my fortune.” He remembers that passage: the many weeks it took to cross the ocean; the vast storm that almost swallowed them up. Remembers the sound of that storm, an awful roaring as the waves hovered and fell, hovered and fell, implacable, terrible. Fleming leans again into the firelight and indicates the watch. �
�It has, you see, a built-in sundial, as well as a clockface. I carry it with me to remind me of where we have come from, and where we are going. We have come from a world of sail and horse power. We have been using the sun to measure time. My own homeland, Scotland, is built upon a horse-powered industrial heritage.”

  “Aye,” spits Jack, the first word he has uttered this night. He stands just outside the circle of light. Everyone turns to stare at him.

  “At the beginning of this century,” Fleming continues, “the annual cost of maintaining a horse was four times the wage paid to a labourer. Our very prosperity, based on the horse, has become dependent upon transcending the horse. We have left the horse and the sun behind.”

  Jack blurts, “The railroad, it’s madness. A disorientation that leads to madness!”

  Conne River Joe, his eyes fixed on Jack, begins to speak, then silences himself.

  “What is it, Joe?” Fleming is curious.

  “There is a price,” the guide says softly, “for change.”

  “For progress, you mean,” Manny puts in. “Surely you aren’t against progress? You’re employed by this surveying expedition, same as the rest of us. Your people use guns, sure enough.”

  Joe meets Manny’s eyes; it is the Englishman whose gaze drops.

  “This progress leaves a mark. On the land.” Joe looks at Fleming. “On you.”

  “Aye. And so our land is blackened with smoke, and cut through with railroads!” Jack’s voice rings through the forest.

  Fleming’s throat dries; he forces himself to smile. “Change does come at a price, it is true.”

  Joe nods. “Great change has come, from across the water, as was foretold.”

  “Foretold? By whom?” Manny asks.

  “We have a Creator, we have a world of the spirits, just as you do. They foretold the coming of great change and hardship. And more change will come with this railroad.”

  “This very place was my first glimpse of the New World,” Fleming remembers. “Twenty-one days after a terrible storm, I was just appearing on deck to put some handkerchiefs out to dry, when I was agreeably surprised to see hills on the horizon. Immediately everyone came on deck, some nearly dancing for joy. This was the south coast of Newfoundland.”

  “Yes. I remember,” Jack mutters. And then the man turns and disappears into the darkness, into the woods, his feet clopping inside his great old boots.

  Remembers that? How? The thought runs through Fleming like cold water.

  The others watch Jack go. Edward whistles softly between his teeth and rolls his eyes; Andrew and Albert suppress a laugh.

  Manny seems unaware of the tension. “We’ll make a proper park out of all this,” he gestures grandly at the boreal night, “just like back home.”

  Fleming shakes off his uneasiness. “I hope not! I love the wildness of this place. And I want others to see it. I picture a near future, a future where the North Atlantic is virtually bridged by a system of steam-propelled floating hotels.”

  “Caw!” Edward breathes. “Imagine that!”

  They all fall silent. Through Fleming’s mind runs a vision of a vast fleet of gorgeous mahogany and brass ship-buildings, run on steam and clockwork. With ballrooms and chapels, with private rooms that rival a palace for luxury. There are stained-glass windows and turrets. And from the turrets flutter stalwart Union Jacks. Vast ships, towering over the waves, sailing serenely in an endless procession, across an Atlantic forever tamed by steam.

  * * *

  It rains in the night. The pattering on his tent awakes Fleming; he emerges to make sure the Theodolite is covered, only to find Manny already there with a lantern. “Sir! Look at this,” Manny whispers.

  Fleming hastens to the little Englishman’s side. “What is it?”

  In answer, Manny swings the lantern in a gentle circle about the foot of the Theodolite. He has already thrown its waxed covering over it, and at first the brightness of the canvas confuses Fleming’s eyes, creating blurs and traces in the darkness. But then he sees what Manny is seeing.

  Hoof prints. A large unshod horse’s hoof prints, all around the Theodolite. The prints are deep. It is as if a vast heavy wild horse has danced circles around the machine, around and around in the darkness, and nobody in all the camp heard a thing.

  * * *

  Fleming does not mention the hoof prints in his journal entry the next day.

  They have made it two-thirds of the way across the southern coast of this island, to a place Joe tells them is called Meelpaeg Lake. “Lake with many coves and bays,” he translates.

  “I like it,” Jack says approvingly. “A beautiful lake. Reminds me of the lochs back home, yes, Fleming, sir?”

  “Indeed it does.” Fleming wonders if the man is homesick. “Indeed it does.”

  “Red Indian Lake is to the north,” Joe points.

  “The Red Indians – do you know anything of them?” Fleming is curious.

  Joe shakes his head. “The Beothuk wouldn’t talk to us.”

  The Red Indians are all gone, now. The last of them, a young woman named Shanawdithit, died in St. John’s sixteen years before Fleming caught his first glimpse of this island. A tale that does not do the Empire credit.

  “You see?” Joe points. On a slight rise, overlooking the vast lake, a tall tree stands alone. Its lower branches have been lopped off, leaving only a tuft at the top, and the bark has been stripped. Long ago it had been painted in red and white stripes, and while the pigment is faded, the colours are, once you notice them, unmistakable. “That is one of theirs.”

  “The Beothuk?”

  Joe nods. “It is a way to communicate.”

  “Communicate what?” Albert asks.

  Joe smiles. “Not what – who. With the world of the spirits.”

  “Like a lightning rod,” Fleming says. It makes him uneasy, for no reason he can discern.

  “Good spirits or bad?” Edward shoots back, grinning.

  But Jack speaks then. “I might take myself down to that lake,” he says. “I think I will, in fact.”

  “Have a nice time,” Edward says, his voice overly polite. The other two boys shuffle their feet and cough, covering their laughs.

  Jack, handsome dark-haired Jack, does not appear to notice. He begins to walk down the slope to the lake, then picks up speed until he achieves a bouncing run.

  “Well, shall the rest of us get to work?”

  Fleming is pleased with the pace of the work that day, even though it goes more slowly than the day before. The terrain is hilly, and rocky outcroppings make the going slow. Finding the best train route will be difficult, although Joe’s knowledge of the terrain, coupled with previous geologic maps, assure Fleming that this south coast route will be the best.

  It won’t please the politicians back in St. John’s, who will want to appease citizens outside the city longing for a trunk line to connect them to the rest of the province. Already Fleming knows the government, like the Canadians, will take the cheapest route in terms of engineering – they’ve already threatened to lay narrow gauge tracks – while making extravagant promises to their citizens. As with Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, and then Alexander Mackenzie, promises will be made that cannot be kept.

  Yes, a waking nightmare, politics. But anything is better than nightmares of unanswerable hoof prints and dead-end memories. The image of the lone tree, created by a dead people and staring blindly at the lake, rises unbidden before his mind’s eye.

  They need to work by “turning” now, as there are so many changes in elevation between the measurement points. Fleming keeps the boys busy with multiple setups and taking levels. “Won’t get a nice smooth rail through here, will you, sir?” Albert worries.

  “Don’t fret, my boy. Dynamite will take care of that,” Fleming assures him. “According to our friend Joe, the terrain levels out nicely in only a few miles.”

  “Yessir.” Albert’s face is red; it is, by this island’s standards, a hot day. He turns and g
oes back to chopping at the vegetation, which is very thick here, widening the path for the Theodolite.

  “It is the business of engineers to make smooth the path which others are to tread!” Fleming calls out after his retreating back.

  Albert turns and gives him a merry grin.

  And with his next swipe of the axe, Albert cuts into his own palm.

  The flow of blood is instantaneous; so is the boy’s shock. Fleming watches Albert’s face go white, watches the uncomprehending look down at his own injury, sees even the pupils of the boy’s eyes widen, turning his eyes dark, all in the space of mere seconds it takes him to halt the Theodolite, command it to sink, and slide from the saddle. All in time to take the boy into his arms as Albert faints.

  It is a matter of a moment for Fleming to wrap the injured hand tight in his neckerchief, to sweep the boy up in his arms and mount the Theodolite. At almost a gallop, chains retracted now so nothing impedes the creature’s movement, they ride back to the camp. Albert does not regain consciousness; his head lolls on his neck. Fleming notes in himself a drive, almost an obsession, to care for this boy, for if he does not something terrible will happen. Notes that this desire to rescue, twinned with terror, is perhaps the driving energy of his entire life. Notes this to ponder later.

  Albert wakes soon enough, to the pain of alcohol poured on the wound, the tug of stitches taken through skin with a needle. Bites down on a leather belt, does not cry out. Fleming stitches Albert’s palm himself. He will suffer no one else to do it.

  He will make smooth the path on which others tread.

  * * *

  It is near nightfall and Jack has not returned to camp. Emmanuel stays with Albert while Fleming and the others circle the lake, calling. They call until the sun has set and the moon is beginning to rise.

  Finally Fleming calls them back to camp. They make a dinner of hard bread and bacon and sit, disconsolate, disturbed.

  “Not a footprint,” Joe says.

  “Could he have drowned?” Andrew quavers.