The Broken Sword

by R. Mingo Sweeney

  MacQueen cut through some trees to head for the quartermaster stores and thought of his new friend’s ambition to become an officer. The young signalman knew a good deal about officers and their attitudes—he had been brought up with them. Instinctively, he felt that Sergeant Cyples’ sardonic attitude and rough tongue would work against him. Being an officer and being a soldier were not necessarily the same thing. He knew that, given time, he would bridge the gap as his attitudes were already formed. He had a nagging doubt about his friend. Possibly he could be of some help after all. If Bill Cyples was going to protect him it was the least he could do. Refining rough diamonds is a delicate art and he didn’t want to offend his new friend.

  The thumbtacks were always disappearing from the notice boards, and MacQueen carried a box in his dispatch case. Where do they go? he wondered. He headed for the canteen to post the orders there.

  8

  Signalman Patrick MacQueen was sitting in Headquarters Company hut trying to write a letter to his mother on YMCA notepaper. The only lighting was the row of bare bulbs down the centre of the room, screwed into a series of long planks that were nailed to crossbeams. Signalman Pineo was sitting on the bare springs of his bunk, leaning against his rolled mattress and blankets and reading a comic book. Others were snoring, doing laundry in tin basins, or playing cards. Some were at the canteen and others were on duty. Two days before payday—and the tobacco situation was desperate. No one was in a good temper.

  Suddenly the far door opened with a crash and Sergeant Cyples stepped in.

  Sergeant William Cyples certainly had a sense of the dramatic. If it had been a wild bull it would have caused less astonishment. He shut the door and grinned widely. Pineo bumped his head scrambling out of his bunk. MacQueen jumped up and knocked a bench over with another crash. All motion and sound in the room ceased. The sergeant strode down the centre of the hut, his steel heels shaking the floor. “Siddown for Chrissakes!” he said. “I’m not going to eat you.”

  No sergeant ever paid social calls in the barracks. The corporal peeked out of his cubicle and rapidly withdrew. In a mild frenzy, he started to assemble himself in uniform.

  “D’you like women, MacQueen?” asked the sergeant with a glance. He took a package of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Pineo, who accepted it, wondering at this new miracle.

  “Well, yes, sir—er, I mean, Sergeant, sir,” stammered MacQueen.

  Sergeant Cyples leaned his hands on the table and watched the signalman’s confusion with relish. “Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said. “I have a car until Monday morning. There are some cabins out near Wolfville. Let’s go and get laid.”

  Pineo let out a wolf whistle.

  “Now?” asked MacQueen.

  “The car’s outside the door,” said Sergeant Cyples.

  The short, fat corporal with double heels marched the length of the hut and came to attention. “Good evening, Sergeant,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  The sergeant produced a pass. “I just got this from the orderly room, Corporal,” said the Sergeant. “It’s for our friend here—until Monday morning.” He passed a cigarette to the corporal. “We are old friends and I want to take him on a party. I’ll get him back okay.”

  “That’s his business,” answered the corporal. “As long as he doesn’t leave a mess here to clean up. Church parade doesn’t concern us unless we want to go.”

  MacQueen quickly stored the paper, put on his jacket, and jammed on his cap. He shoved a toothbrush into his pocket and was ready. “I like the cap,” said the sergeant. “Wish I had one.”

  “Do it right this time, MacQueen!” ordered Pineo. That earned him another cigarette.

  The two left the corporal shaking his head. “What in the hell is the army coming to?” he asked of no one in particular. “A sergeant taking a buck private out on a party?”

  “He’s a signalman,” Pineo reminded the corporal.

  “That spells trouble for someone,” added the corporal. “It undermines the system.”

  “Fuck the system,” said Pineo. He ignored the corporal and lit his cigarette.

  The car was a dusty Chevrolet coupe that smelled of stale tobacco. MacQueen ran around and climbed in beside the sergeant.

  “I borrowed this from my new second lieutenant,” he laughed. “That guy took one look at the awkward squad and almost died. He’ll give me anything to get those fellows in shape.”

  “Sounds like blackmail,” laughed MacQueen. This was far better than visiting Barbara and her aunt.

  The sergeant flicked the lights and started the motor. “What the shit, Pat,” he replied. “We pay for anything we get in life. Just don’t flinch when the bills come due. We just have time to make that goddamn liquor store; what a blighted country!” He crashed the gears and spun the wheels and they lurched down the dirt road. “Not used to it yet,” he apologized. Who cares? thought MacQueen. The sentry didn’t question the pass and they were out of the camp.

  “I scrounged a case of beer out of the sergeants’ mess,” the sergeant said. “How about rye whisky with some ginger ale?”

  “That’s fine with me,” said MacQueen. He wasn’t sure what rye whisky meant.

  “You ever been screwed?” asked the sergeant.

  “Yeah,” answered MacQueen. “An American girl in Bermuda.”

  The sergeant glanced at him in amusement. The dashboard lights reflected off his face. He shifted the long gear stick. “Bermuda, eh?” he asked. “That sounds pretty good.” He pulled beside the curb in front of the liquor store. “Two bottles should do us?”

  MacQueen shrugged. How the hell should he know?

  The sergeant made his purchase, returned to the car, and placed the bottles in the trunk with the beer. “We can get some ginger ale out there,” he said.

  The roads in the Annapolis Valley were still not paved. They drove past the Cornwallis Inn and out of town, towards Wolfville. MacQueen’s brother had gone there to a boarding school a few years back—he remembered the campus. “Where are you going to put the women?” he asked. There was no room in the coupe for them.

  “We’ll order them when we get there,” laughed the sergeant. “I hope you’re not too fussy.” That remark upset Mac Queen, as he tended to be fastidious; bad personal habits could put him off. He didn’t want to have to prove his manhood for the sergeant’s amusement, but he didn’t want to seem queer either. The sergeant touched him lightly on the knee—one of his nervous gestures. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I’m not really interested in screwing women right now. To get alone with you and have a talk is all I really want. In this man’s army that means we have to make a big production out of it. We have to wear a uniform and we have nowhere to meet. As it is, we’re taking chances.” He swung the car into a dirt driveway through a row of poplar trees. A semicircle of cabins sat darkly around a lighted roadside diner. Only one car was parked in front. The sergeant went inside and returned with a key and two large Canada Dry ginger ales. Driving on, he stopped at Cabin 11.

  “He said the fire is laid, all we have to do is light it.” He passed the key to MacQueen and unlocked the trunk. MacQueen opened the cabin and flicked a switch. One light bulb hung from the middle beam, and the inevitable potbellied stove sat there, looking like a toad. Two bunks, two chairs, and a table. They were billed as OVERNIGHT CABINS: VACANCY. He could hear a jukebox from the diner. It was playing “Is It True What They Say About Dixie?” MacQueen liked that song. He opened the stove and lit a match. It burned wood, which was a relief after all that putrid barracks coal.

  Sergeant Cyples entered the cabin and looked around. A roll of old flypaper hung by the window. There was a dirty sink in the room. “Jesus Christ,” he said in awe. “What I don’t do for England!”

  They stored the beer under a bed. The sergeant went to get some glasses and a bottle opener. He returned with those items, along with two tin ashtrays and a Halifax newspaper. “We can read the editorials and have a laugh,
” he said. He took off his jacket and poured two drinks with a ginger ale topping. “What was my toast?” he asked.

  “To comrades?” asked MacQueen.

  “To a comrade,” answered the sergeant. “There is a big difference.” They drank, and then lit cigarettes. The overhead light bulb cast strange shadows over their faces. The fire started to blaze. It wasn’t Monte Carlo, but anywhere was better than the barracks.

  “What in the hell is a guy like you doing at this end of the racket?” asked sergeant Cyples. “Christ, m’boy, you’ve got class.”

  MacQueen didn’t know whether that was a compliment or not. “My father wanted me to go to Royal Military College,” he answered.

  Bill Cyples took a big drink. “Royal Military College, eh? And I’m smuggling you out of the barracks? Holy shit, you should be smuggling me into RMC!”

  “It’s closed for the duration,” answered MacQueen quite seriously. “I just joined up.”

  “…and lied about your age?”

  MacQueen shrugged but didn’t answer.

  “When you gave me that stick of yours last night,” said Cyples, “it was the first present anyone’s given me for years. Why would you do that?” The sergeant was intensely interested in the answer. He seemed to be trying to get a grip on something that had eluded him all of his life.

  MacQueen frowned. He hadn’t thought about it. “You gave me a lift, gave me some gin—stuff like that. You are a sergeant. They don’t do that sort of thing.” He could hear faint notes of “Underneath the Spreading Chestnut Tree”. His mind drifted momentarily to the outdoor dances at the Elbow Beach Hotel. The surf was surging below and he was dancing in a white jacket with Dorothy from Poughkeepsie. They each had a Planter’s Punch waiting while they laughed and tried the latest dance fad.

  “Money? Booze? Bullshit, MacQueen.” The sergeant opened the stove and threw in another log. “Those things don’t count to me. What the hell counts to you?” He leaned forward and put his hand on the arm of his chair. “Tell me. What really does count to you?”

  MacQueen was uncomfortable. This was no gay night out with the girls. His friend was tense and asking questions like an inquisitor. Even the bare bulb overhead fitted the scene. “I can’t tell you anything unless I know what you’re trying to find out,” he answered. “There’s nothing special about me.”

  “Christ, you’re even modest!” Bill Cyples laughed and poured two more whiskies.

  The room was getting hot and MacQueen took off his jacket. He wore heavy issue braces over the collarless issue shirt. The trousers were high waisted, and the jacket buttoned onto them (in theory to protect the kidneys from the cold). He rolled the sleeves of his shirt to the elbows and lit another cigarette. The sergeant opened the door and fanned the air to clear the smoke. There were now a couple of cars at the diner. The sergeant closed the door and stretched out on one of the bunks and stared at the ceiling.

  “Ever been in jail?” he asked.

  “Jail?” MacQueen laughed. “Maybe I should have been—but no, I haven’t.”

  Bill Cyples turned onto his side and rested his head in his hand. He stared at his companion. “I’m pretty bright,” he said. “I make a good boss, the troops like me, I know weapons and can solve problems. Nothing scares me particularly and I don’t value anything much. But somewhere in my mind there is a lever that I can’t find—and that has always allowed a lot of people to shit on me from a great height. What I can see I can handle, but I can’t see myself. What do you say to that?”

  “Let me get this straight,” answered MacQueen. “You want me to show you to yourself?”

  Bill Cyples seemed to taste those words like a chef sampling a sauce. He sat up on the bed. “That’s about it,” he said. “You’ve got a secret. I saw it right away. You don’t know what it is or how to tell me, but I can solve it if I can see your vision of me. That means you have to be honest.”

  “Maybe you won’t like what I see,” said MacQueen dubiously.

  “I’ll take the chance,” said Sergeant Cyples. “If you destroy me, who cares?” He stood suddenly and said, “Let’s get out of this shithole and have some dinner in Wolfville. We’ll take a crock with us and live it up.”

  There was always a hotel near a railway station and it always had a dining room. Commercial salesmen still travelled by train, and the traffic was increasing as rationing of gasoline and rubber became facts of life. This hotel was typical. It faced the old station, with plate glass windows. The lobby had shiny spittoons and deep leather armchairs. The dining room was brightly lit, and every table was set with good silver and a white tablecloth. Carafes of clear water stood on each table, with linen napkins beside each setting. They ordered three courses with rare roast beef for $2.50. The sergeant placed the bottle of whisky under the table and the headwaiter ignored it. This hotel belonged to the Dominion Atlantic Railway, a branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway system, and they were fussy about standards.

  There were a few patrons, including some of the professors from Acadia University having a small celebration. There was also a lone officer sitting at the far end, but he must have been home on leave, as neither of them recalled him from the camp. He didn’t raise his eyes from papers he was studying as he slowly and methodically consumed his dinner.

  MacQueen noticed that the sergeant subdued his raucous laugh and coarse language here. He wasn’t quite as casual. There was no one he could overpower or impress here—quite the contrary. The panther was out of his element. It was where he wanted to be, but not where he functioned best. Somewhere in there was the lever he was looking to pull. A panther isn’t much good without his killer instinct linked to his claws and teeth. Domesticate a panther and he is helpless…or he will rebel and be shot.

  Of course, MacQueen was looking at it all from one angle. Reverse the scenario and throw a young gentleman with no killer instinct into the jungle. That was the path that MacQueen had set for himself. Sergeant Cyples switched his tail, growled softly, and restrained himself. He was studying the landscape through his friend’s eyes.

  It was casual grace that kept defeating the highly strung sergeant. He knew exactly what he would do if the building caught on fire, but he didn’t know what to do with his hands between courses. This boy was ten years his junior and far below him in rank, yet he accepted everything without any strain. He had probably even played cricket. The sergeant knew that MacQueen would have been speechless in admiration if he had witnessed some of his mad adventures in Central America. God, we can’t just shoot all of this off the face of the earth, the sergeant thought. We shouldn’t want to. Yet he felt an edge of rage that he couldn’t grasp.

  “What were you doing in the navy?” The question startled Cyples, and he shook his head to focus. “I was a round rig gunnery rating,” he said. “I’ve been born, bred, and brought up on guns. I don’t love them or hate them, but I am good at them and understand them.”

  MacQueen looked into his eyes and felt as though he were looking down two gun barrels. “I think guns are beautiful,” he said. “But I don’t know all that much about them. I fired a Vickers machine gun at fourteen—all the hot casings poured out on my bare knee. I was in the Highlanders.”

  “In a kilt in an army camp at fourteen?” The sergeant grinned. “It’s a wonder that you can sit down yet.”

  “I think we can change that subject,” said MacQueen. “That’s the best meal I’ve had in months. Let’s have a cup of coffee in those big leather chairs?”

  “And a cigar,” said Sergeant Cyples. He went to the counter and selected two. A waitress brought a pot of coffee and two heavy cups with saucers and silver spoons. The sugar bowl and cream jug were also silver, engraved with D.A.R. on a shield. They sat and looked at the old railway station and threw their cigar wrappings into a brass spittoon. The headwaiter came over, and the sergeant handed him a ten-dollar bill for the dinner and table. He had the whisky in the paper bag beside his chair. The officer walked through the lobby and
out the door without a glance. He had a red band around his cap. “One of the general’s staff,” said the Sergeant. MacQueen was impressed.

  9

  MacQueen jumped out of his dreams. They fell from his memory like broken shards of glass. Someone was banging on the cabin door. “Open up,” said a voice through the door. “I got some splits for ya.”

  “What the hell is that?” asked Sergeant Cyples from the other bunk. The cabin was cold. He was sleeping on his stomach and raised a tousled head. “Get the door, Signalman. That’s an order.”

  The signalman had a hard on and was embarrassed. Nonetheless, he jumped out of the cot and winced as his bare feet hit the linoleum floor. He opened the door. A man in an ear-lugged cap was standing there, holding a pile of kindling. “Have you got paper?” he asked.

  “Where do I have a shit?” shouted the sergeant.

  “It’s in the diner,” the man replied, shoving the wood at MacQueen. “I wish you guys wouldn’t piss in the snowbanks. It gives the place a bad name.”

  MacQueen, shivering, tried to close the door.

  “Then where in the hell are we supposed to piss?” roared the sergeant.

  “Use the sink like everybody else!” The man shook his head at the stupidity of soldiers and tramped back to the diner.