“Take us to see Lord Nelson at his hotel,” ordered Sergeant Cyples.
MacQueen’s spirits rose and he turned to his friend as they settled in the back seat. “To a comrade,” said MacQueen, with a surge of gratitude and emotion. The two young men shook hands with solemnity.
The Lord Nelson Hotel was located at the corner of South Park Street and Spring Garden Road, just across from the Halifax Public Gardens. It had a short, curved drive leading to steps under a large metal canopy. The foyer had a high, ornate ceiling and low leather chairs; wide steps at either end led to the dining room. Next to that was a large drawing room, which boasted a full-length painting of Lord Horatio Nelson himself, standing on the quarterdeck of HMS Victory at the battle of Trafalgar. MacQueen noted that one of his lordship’s arms was completely shot away, and he wore a patch over one eye. MacQueen found the peripheral glance reassuring. Surely Napoleon would have won that war, he conjectured, if they had discharged Horatio Nelson when he only lost his arm?
The lobby was teeming with officers and their ladies. Private MacQueen waited at the desk while a commander of the Royal Canadian Navy haggled over a telephone bill. The assistant manager, wearing a black jacket and striped trousers, came out of his little office to mediate the dispute. The desk clerk glanced with boredom at MacQueen. He checked a list and said, “Number 305—the house phones are over there.”
MacQueen painfully bumped a full colonel as he awkwardly turned from the desk. The sergeant was standing beside a pillar and admiring the ceiling. MacQueen raised the telephone and requested the room.
“MacQueen here,” came from the other end. It sounded odd.
“John, it’s Pat,” said MacQueen. There was a slight pause.
“Squirk!” said his brother. Pat winced. “Where are you? We’ve been calling everywhere.”
“I’m in the lobby,” said the younger MacQueen. “I’ve got a sergeant friend with me…”
“Bring him up,” said John. “I’ve got some Canadian Club, and there’s someone here for you to meet. Say about ten minutes?”
“Fine,” said Pat. “…and—er—congratulations.”
“Thanks, old boy,” said his brother. “We’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Private MacQueen hung up the telephone. The sergeant will have a stiff neck avoiding all these officers, he thought to himself. Sergeant Cyples was now admiring the balcony. MacQueen joined him, and they moved out of the traffic and around the pillar.
US SENATOR URGES BRITAIN QUIT read the headline of The Halifax Chronicle, displayed at the magazine and tobacco counter. The sergeant had been telling MacQueen about the process of loading the A Company onto the troopship, and that Tony hoped that he would soon rejoin them. He said that Sergeant Browne was slotted for a promotion and had gone on a training course for chemical warfare. He recounted that the colonel was in trouble over supplies to the camp, and that his own request for officer’s training was delayed or derailed somewhere.
“If you’re going to Bermuda,” said Sergeant Cyples, “I am going to ask for a transfer to the Winnipeg Grenadiers. I spent two weeks at camp with them before I joined the navy, and they are garrisoning Bermuda right now!”
MacQueen looked at his friend in surprise and delight. “That must be top secret information!” he exclaimed. “I won’t ask how you know it, but wouldn’t it be great if you could get there too? I sure know that place, and we could have a great time. I want to forget the fucking war for a while—put in for a transfer, Bill. You probably know a lot of them anyway!”
“I know the colonel,” said Bill Cyples wryly. “The trouble is that he knows me too!” They laughed and moved towards the elevator.
“My brother has some Canadian Club,” said MacQueen. “That and a new wife—what more could one ask?”
After a few minutes they headed upstairs; the sergeant moved to shield his friend’s injured arm in the crowded elevator.
The door to room 305 was ajar—and his brother stood in the middle of the room with a wide smile on his face. Dear John’s cat-and-canary smile, thought Pat as he extended his right hand in greeting.
22
Private Patrick MacQueen immediately felt like a dishevelled scarecrow when he saw his brother advancing towards him with a sunny smile. Officer Cadet John MacQueen wore a crisp khaki shirt and tie, with Seaforth Highland trews and polished black brogues. His fair hair was crew cut, and Pat noticed those always-white, immaculate fingernails. “Hello, brother,” said John, beaming an earnest gaze from his blue eyes. “So you are a wounded hero, eh? Come in and meet your new sister-in-law.”
“Hello, John,” answered Pat, and felt that familiar hand around his own. “I’d like you to meet Sergeant Bill Cyples.”
John’s act didn’t falter. He looked moderately surprised, as though he hadn’t been warned to expect another, then pushed his hand past his brother and said, “Come in, Sergeant. I see you’ve been looking after my kid brother.”
Sergeant Cyples took the hand warily and contrasted the two men standing so closely in front of him. Pat was a shade taller than his effusive brother, and his hair was darker. The officer cadet radiated health and goodwill, while Pat seemed to withdraw like a turtle and surrender his buoyancy. The brotherly affection seemed strained to the sergeant, but he smiled and noted the large bottle of whisky on the bureau.
“Helen is powdering her nose,” said John. “Hang up your coats and have a drink. Can I help you, Squirk? That sling looks pretty impressive. Does it hurt?”
They entered the hotel bedroom. The bedcover was wrinkled and John’s highland tunic was draped over the back of a chair. There was the scent of a woman’s perfume in the air, and some of the cigarette butts had lipstick on them. A new seltzer bottle stood beside the whisky, and some hairpins littered the bureau. The toilet flushed.
“You’re looking just great,” lied John as he upended two glasses and dumped ice cubes into them with his hand. He poured two drinks and squirted some seltzer into them. “A wedding present,” he said, waving the seltzer bottle. “You remember, Squirk. Dad was never without one.” He passed the drinks, then raised a glass and said, “Cheers, old boy,” to his brother. He then smiled at the sergeant, and they drank deeply.
The interrelationship dynamics of this little scene had each head whirring unconsciously, trying to appraise one another and react to what was being revealed by word and gesture. To the sergeant, this unknown brother cast his friend in an entirely new light. Or, one might say, illuminated the picture more fully. To the officer cadet, his young brother had simply fallen into another embarrassing mishap that he would patronize and attempt to overlook. Patrick viewed his brother from the unique angle of having been his shadow for the first twelve years of his life, and not all of the memories were pleasant.
The bathroom door opened, and a young lady in a light mauve dress with a wide folded collar stepped gracefully into the room. It was a studied entrée. She had brown hair and a wide, crimson smile. She held out one hand and advanced on Pat. He rose awkwardly from the edge of the bed, and the sergeant set his glass on the bedside table.
“You’re Pat,” said the young lady.
“This is your sister, Helen,” said John.
“Hello, Helen,” said Pat, taking her hand. “This is Bill Cyples.”
Helen performed a miniature pirouette and offered her hand to the sergeant. At eye level, between the fingers of her left hand, she held a newly lit cigarette. Her fingernails were the colour of her mouth. “Hello, Bill,” she said in a controlled voice.
“Pleasure, ma’am,” said the sergeant.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” asked John proudly, as though Helen were a pet macaw.
“Pour me a drink, dear,” said Helen. She sat on the chair with John’s tunic and crossed her legs, which were a notable feature.
“It’s beginning to snow,” said Patrick hesitantly. He caught his brother’s sardonic glance in the mirror above the bureau.
“How is your arm, Pa
t?” asked Helen. “What a dreadful mishap!”
The effortful chatter continued like this for a time.
Winston Churchill had clamped the War Emergencies Act on Great Britain. He had never been elected prime minister, but his iron control was the envy of his counterpart in Ottawa. The Battle of Britain had passed its peak, but the Battle of the Atlantic was just beginning to heat up. Ninety-odd assorted freighters and tankers lay anchored in Bedford Basin, awaiting convoy, and the first snow of the winter silently descended on crowded Halifax. Prostitutes from all over the country had also descended on this old seaport, and they cursed the coming winter. Water Street was the scene of every grubby vice known to man.
In the Lord Nelson Hotel, a stringed trio still tried bravely to maintain the tranquility of earlier days. Our quartet had to divide into two crowded elevators and reunite in the crowded lobby. In a wave of Helen’s perfume, they approached the dining room and walked past a line of waiting people. John had made reservations and generously tipped the headwaiter in advance. He unhooked a velvet cord and showed them to a table set for four. They accepted large menus as indignant officers in the waiting line fumed and wondered what the world was coming to—this was carrying democracy a step too far, and maybe that fellow Franco had a point.
John wore his cutaway highland tunic, with sparkling buttons and the white patches of an officer cadet on the shoulders. Helen was deliberately nonchalant in her light mauve dress, and she puffed her cigarette from a short ebony holder. The sergeant wore battle dress, as did Patrick MacQueen, with his awkward sling and cast. Their table was the merest pinpoint in the vast panoply of a world plunging deeper into war.
Patrick observed his new sister-in-law with reservations but no jealousy. He felt excluded from everything, and wondered how many moments of life Lord Nelson had in the picture before he was shot down and said, “Kiss me, Hardy.”
He prayed that he hadn’t uttered any such sentiments unwittingly when he had been shot down.
Helen’s eyes looked oriental and flashed a tinge of green as he caught her studying him over the large menu. It was engraved with a large N surmounted by the naval crown. Change the crown, thought MacQueen, and it could mean Napoleon. For some reason, the thought disturbed him.
23
Patrick MacQueen did not find the dinner easy going. It was not only the necessity of eating with one hand; the whisky had blurred his perceptions, and he felt isolated and monosyllabic. The false heartiness of his brother and movie-star attitude of Helen were of no comfort, and Bill Cyples had adopted the same wary and tense persona that he had in Wolfville. The dining room was crowded, and impatient people waited in a double line extending into the lobby. Every man was either an officer or a well-dressed civilian, the waiters were harried, and the stringed trio was barely discernible.
It was a relief to finish and return to the hotel room. A dance was scheduled in the hotel, and the newlyweds obviously had other things on their minds than entertaining infantry sergeants or disabled brothers. They accepted a straight whisky nightcap and were helped into their greatcoats.
“I haven’t got a wedding present for you,” said Patrick MacQueen apologetically, “but I wish you both good luck.”
“We’re heading out tomorrow,” said his brother. “Duty calls, and there is a war on. Take care of yourself, Squirk, and give our love to mother if you get back home. Boy, what I wouldn’t give for a month in Bermuda right now!”
Helen kissed her brother-in-law then wiped his lips with a Kleenex. John walked to the elevator with them, and his smiling face disappeared as the doors slid shut. The two soldiers walked through the crowded lobby and out into the snowy night.
A yellow tram clanged its bell and flashed its way through the intersection; it was lit from within with silhouetted, huddled passengers who looked out the glass windows at the wintry night.
The locked wrought iron gates of the Public Gardens traced an arch of black through the falling snow. The corner traffic lights turned red-amber-green, and a lonely statue stood on a granite plinth, a turban of white on his head. “That’s Joseph Howe,” said MacQueen. “A politician.”
Sergeant Cyples snorted derisively. “Why would anyone erect a statue to a politician?” he asked. A car spun its whirring wheels and lurched around the corner as the lights were changing. “My train leaves at eleven-thirty,” said Sergeant Cyples, looking at his watch, which he wore face-inwards on his left wrist. “Where can we get a drink?”
“There’s always some joint on Water Street,” answered MacQueen. “God knows what we’d be drinking!”
They trudged down Spring Garden Road, through the pale reflections of lighted store windows and under the orange circles of street lamps. The stone Gothic façade of Saint Mary’s Cathedral fronted directly onto the street, and at the corner was the lighted marquee of the Capitol Theatre. “Gone With the Wind” was on re-play, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh; a mute line of snow-capped figures stretched down Barrington Street to see them. There was no one waiting to get into the Cathedral.
“Let’s go in here for a minute?” suggested MacQueen.
The sergeant opened the wooden, iron-hinged Gothic door and they entered the nave of the cathedral, which was officially a basilica because Halifax housed an Archbishop (he was also the Bishop of Bermuda). Banks covered by small red jars of tapered wax were aglow at the side altars and in front of statues. A life-size crucifix hung from one of the pillars near the main altar, and a red votive light hung from the ceiling over the tabernacle. The two soldiers dipped their fingers into a holy water fount and each made the sign of the cross—it was a conditioned reflex they had both known since childhood. Their steel heels echoed loudly in the cold church. As they advanced to the marble altar railing, they both automatically genuflected on one knee. Then they knelt at the railing.
“In San Salvador the crucifixes are agonizing,” whispered the sergeant. “God has to suffer more than everyone else, and down there everyone suffers.”
MacQueen looked up into the downcast face of Christ. Was it Longinus who thrust the spear into his side, he wondered, and why does that name occur to me? He had been a soldier at the foot of the cross, just like the sergeant and himself. He heard someone whispering the rosary in the dark shadows, and the tram bells could be faintly heard even here. The smell of old incense and wet wool permeated the air, and somewhere a door slammed like a distant shot across the mountains. MacQueen rested his sling on the altar rail and looked at the draped tabernacle. In there, he thought, rests the answer to everything. He sighed deeply and wondered if he would have had the courage to thrust a spear into the side of the man they labelled the King of the Jews. It fulfilled the prophecies, and someone had to do it.
“I have a train to catch,” said the sergeant softly.
Water Street was a jumble of decaying buildings, ship chandler shops, second-hand stores, and bootlegging whorehouses. Sailors and soldiers from the allied armed forces sought recreation in this waterfront area, as drinking in public was officially forbidden, and prostitution had never been legal. The snow cast a deceptive blanket over the decrepitude and squalor, and disguised the breaks and potholes in the cobblestoned street. Dark telephone poles reared like the crosses on Golgotha, laden with heavy cables that sagged between them and accumulated their own strips of ice. The buildings were mostly stone and had been erected a century ago; within, they were rotting lumber and uncertain wooden beams. The pair entered a dark doorway and continued into a poorly lit hall. A rickety stairway ran up along the wall, and sounds of commotion and singing could be heard. A soldier, either dead or drunk, lay huddled beside the stairs, and a small child stood in a doorway. She had matted hair and carried a broken doll, and looked at them with wide black eyes before thrusting a dirty thumb into her mouth.
“Jesus!” exclaimed the sergeant, “I’ve been in a lot of flea traps but this has to be bottom!” A bareheaded sailor stumbled down the stairs and started to vomit in the hall. The child f
ollowed every motion in the dark hallway with her blank stare.
“Go to bed, kid,” said the sergeant. He proffered a coin, and she grabbed it, darting her wet little hand from her mouth and back again in a flash. The soldier groaned. The child scampered down the hallway and into the dark.
Someone bellowed in laughter from the top of the stairs. “Ernie, you fuckin’ clod,” the someone called to the reeling sailor in a Liverpool accent. “Where the hell are you?”
“It’s either here or sitting in the station,” said the sergeant. “A couple of drinks and I might be able to sleep on that train.”
“What the hell?” said MacQueen, hefting his sling with his right hand. “We’re here, let’s give it a try.” This is the land fit for heroes, he thought grimly as they mounted the steep wooden stairway with the broken banister.
“Ernie, mate, where the hell are you? Have you seen my mate down there, Sarge?”
“He’s getting rid of the rotgut,” said the sergeant. He pushed open the door on the landing, and it sounded like feeding time at the circus.
Entering the room was like turning over a large rock. There was no gaiety here, simply a sodden type of frenzy. The air was like a channel fog and smelled like an open sewer. An incongruous black kitchen coal stove stood just inside the doorway, and for furniture there were a few wooden tables and old chairs, and a battered horsehair chaise longue. On this a bald-headed man sprawled, with his tie under one ear and a glass of liquid spilling onto his fly. The English sailor, with his cap on the back of his head, supported his nearly prostrate mate through the door behind them. There were a couple of heavily mascaraed prostitutes sitting sullenly at one table; a soldier was sitting between them. His face was bloated and he wore a stunned expression and didn’t appear to blink. Others were at a table in a shaded corner, singing “Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major” and waving their arms in the air. The peeling green wallpaper had a mock art nouveau design from the twenties. The madame of this particular dive reminded MacQueen of Elsa Lanchester in “The Bride of Frankenstein”; her hair stood upright and her eyes had a vacant and bloodshot disinterest.
The Broken Sword Page 10