The Broken Sword

by R. Mingo Sweeney

  Patrick MacQueen eased his injured arm out of the taxi and into the stern environment of this night scene in wartime Halifax. The atmosphere gently crackled with tension, and every actor on the stage was dynamically aware that, even in his little sphere, the fate of empires was being decided. Some were sickened by the aura, but many relished it. It was like a slow, low-dose injection of cocaine…one’s senses were alerted and the blood flowed more quickly. It overshadowed everything, and made of these secret departures a drama that no holiday crowd could possibly match. Killers were on the loose out there, and sharks were in the Gulf Stream. A four-inch naval gun was mounted on the stern, and everyone was under sealed orders.

  MacQueen had a small steamer trunk and two suitcases. Under his injured arm, he carried a brown paper package that his grandmother had given to him in Truro. She had met the train from Charlottetown under the great canopy of the enormous, castellated, brownstone station, and let him kiss her lined and dimpled cheek. His grandfather accompanied her, standing in his constant state of mild bewilderment in a voluminous camel fur coat. The package had come from a Chinese laundry and contained two white mess jackets that MacQueen had forgotten eighteen months previously, when he had left to join the Signal Corps. It was still dusty from that long time on the shelf.

  The week spent with his father had passed slowly for them both. The periods of strained silence seemed even longer and more frequent than MacQueen remembered. Brief interactions with others offered them only partial relief. His father eventually told him that after he recuperated in Bermuda he should return and they would figure out his next step. He questioned him just long enough to feel satisfied that his son would follow through—and then sent him on his way with the same brief handshake they had started off with.

  The driver unloaded the taxi and MacQueen gave him a tip. A steward detached himself from the knot at the foot of the gangway.

  “Comin’ aboard, sir?” he asked. MacQueen nodded and searched in his overcoat pocket for his ticket. “I’ll meet you at the purser’s counter,” said the steward, with a grin, then he left to get a trolley. MacQueen carried the latest Operator pulp magazine—#13, starring Terence X O’Leary—and he had a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo in a suitcase—a parting present from his father. The taxi turned and left him standing in the middle of the huge terminal. The steward, whistling “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling” by Fats Waller, loaded the trunk and bags on the trolley. “Real pea-souper,” he said. Together they walked to the circle of light at the foot of the gangway.

  “Hello, m’lad,” said the assistant purser. “Going back home, are we? Just let me take the stub…that’s it. We’ll see you on board.”

  MacQueen didn’t remember his face, but he appreciated the sentiment.

  MacQueen stepped off the companionway into the familiar smells of fresh wax and leather that accented the purser’s square. The floor was polished and inlaid with five-pointed stars and the replica of a compass. Red leather lounging sofas were angled towards a dividing staircase that led to the forward lounges and promenade deck. Shining brass ashtrays stood at each end of the sofas, and the purser’s counter was cut into one wall. The uniformed purser stood behind the counter, at the rear of which were two facing desks and his small office. Everything gleamed and reflected the glow from the art deco lighting fixtures. A pageboy in a white jacket stood beside the counter, a round hat tilted over one eye and held in place by a chin strap.

  “Well, young MacQueen!” said the purser, extending his hand. “Welcome aboard the ’awkins again. We haven’t seen you for some time!”

  MacQueen clasped the purser’s hand and dropped the package.

  “I’ll get it,” said the pageboy, scooping it from the deck.

  “You’ll be alone ’til we get to Boston,” said the purser. “Midships on the port side, number seven. Did you have an accident?” He glanced at the white sling that protruded from MacQueen’s coat.

  “I was in the army,” MacQueen replied self-consciously. “Nothing serious, but it’ll take a little time.”

  “Wounded hero, eh?” laughed the purser. “Well, everything could be worse. I don’t know when we are casting off, we just do what we’re told these days.”

  “Thank you…” said MacQueen.

  “O’Donnell,” interjected the purser. Some other passengers were stepping off the gangway.

  “I hope you have a nice trip.”

  MacQueen followed the jaunty pageboy down the silent corridor lined with oaken doors. “Right in here, sir,” said the boy, opening a door and motioning for MacQueen to lead the way. The light was burning overhead, and two bunks were made up with bright Hudson Bay blankets. The sheets and pillowcases were crisp and white, and under each bunk were brassbound drawers. There was a glass-topped bureau and a shiny sink under a large mirror. A tiny shower and toilet were beyond an open door, and the brass porthole was painted grey, with little red curtains on brass rings. Fresh-air ducts were in the ceiling, and reading lights over each bunk.

  “Your bags will be here soon,” said the pageboy. He helped MacQueen to take off his long blue overcoat. “Can I get you anything?”

  “How about a beer?” he asked.

  “The bar is closed,” answered the pageboy, “but I’ll see what I can do.” He winked saucily. “It’s against regulations but you look thirsty.”

  MacQueen handed him a five-dollar bill.

  “I can get a half dozen for that!” exclaimed the page.

  “That’s fine,” replied MacQueen with a smile. “Keep the change, then we’ll settle up in Bermuda.”

  “Yes, sir!” said the page with enthusiasm. “Comin’ right up.” He darted out of the door and scampered to his hidden supply.

  The steward set MacQueen’s small trunk in the middle of the cabin and placed his two suitcases on top. “If you want to unpack,” he said, “I’ll clear them out ’til we get there.”

  “We’ll settle up at the end?” asked MacQueen.

  “Certainly, sir,” replied the steward. “I have to run and get some other stuff aboard.”

  “Thank you,” said MacQueen. “Good night.”

  “Good night, sir,” said the steward.

  The pageboy returned and lined six bottles of beer onto the bureau. “Put ’em in the sink to keep ’em cool,” he said. “Don’t let them sit around loose—if there’s a heavy sea running you’d be walkin’ around on broken glass.”

  “Would you care for one?” asked MacQueen.

  “Ain’t old enough,” laughed the page. “I got some other customers…You okay now?”

  “You might drop me a package of Lucky Strikes when passing,” said MacQueen. “I’m tired of Canadian cigarettes.”

  “Right-o,” said the page and latched the door slightly ajar with a brass fixture. The doors were never locked, and a long curtain assured privacy when desired.

  MacQueen opened a bottle of Black Horse beer with the opener attached to the wall. He poured it slowly into a sparkling glass and held it up to the light. Then he tilted it to his mouth and drank the entire contents with deliberation and joy. He breathlessly wiped his lips, leaned on the sink, and gazed at himself in the mirror. The beer warmly flooded his stomach. There was no one to tell him what not to do; a new leaf was quietly turning. Right now, nothing else mattered. The tensions of the past limitless months began to flow out of him, as though someone had waved a wand.

  The pageboy returned and tossed two packages of Lucky Strike cigarettes and a copy of the Halifax Chronicle onto the bunk under the porthole. “Take that bunk,” he said. “It’s furthest from the engines. I’ll put it all onto your bill. Would you like a sandwich? The dining room is closed ’til breakfast.”

  MacQueen requested a club sandwich, tore the tip off the end of the green cigarette package, and inhaled the smell of the fresh tobacco leaves. The fragrance was stronger than any Canadian brand, rich and mellow, and redolent of the deep south. He tapped the package, withdrew a cigarette, and lit it.
He then opened one suitcase, placed his shaving kit beside the basin, and shook out a linen bathrobe. He would have a shower, a beer, a sandwich, and go to bed with a book. The intensity of his joy in these deliberate proceedings was beyond articulation; spiritually he felt somewhere beyond gravity, encased in this luxurious little iron cell. He was alone and his own man, just past his eighteenth birthday, in a world that was shaking the old ways and heading somewhere into the new.

  He unfolded the newspaper and glanced at the headlines. London had been bombed again; Cologne had been hit by the Royal Air Force; the Italians were repulsed in Libya; U-boats surrounded Britain, and surface-raiders were in the Atlantic. Halifax was called “an unnamed east Canadian port,” and the Green Lantern Restaurant was being renovated. Churchill was much more bellicose than Chamberlain and talked of world strategy, despite his early failure at Gallipoli and, later, in Norway. Lend-Lease was Roosevelt’s top priority, and the Americans were building bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the West Indies. He condemned the old colonial empires, and MacQueen wondered what on earth Churchill—a servant of the crown—had in common with this Democrat-cum-Republican.

  It all seemed so cynical that he threw the paper into the waste bin and slowly undressed. The sandwich, a piece of apple pie, and a pot of tea, all under a large silver dome, was sitting on the bureau when he stepped out of the shower. He would place it in the corridor when finished. He examined his shoulder in the mirror. It was pink and puckered, but he could move his arm. He put on his pyjamas, adjusted the sling, and poured another glass of beer. He regretted that Bill Cyples was not with him, but he enjoyed the solitude. For the moment, the future didn’t matter, and the past he preferred to forget.

  Club sandwiches always reminded him of the Elbow Beach Hotel and the orchestra playing his mother’s favourite—“Trees”, by Joyce Kilmer—at sunny luncheons overlooking the beach.

  His little sister had been with them then, and a sudden direct arrow of helpless anguish shot through his heart. A vision of her perfect little profile lying in the coffin, surrounded by candles and the smell of carnations heavy in the air—it all unmanned him, and he wiped his eyes bitterly. “Of all this rotten universe, why her?” He had asked that question ten thousand times—and no one answered him. He speared an olive with a toothpick and forced his mind from that abyss of emotion.

  Terence X. O’Leary’s escadrille of SPAD two-winged pursuit planes was moving to the western front from Nancy, to match prowess against the evil black-crossed Fokkers of the elegant Baron Max von Pappenheim. It would be a duel to the death over No Man’s Land, and then Captain O’Leary would return to drink a toast in cognac to “the next man that dies”. The plots were predictable, but this was half of their appeal.

  So unlike the world itself, as it spins to its destiny….

  MacQueen finished the sandwich, pushed the tray out of the door, brushed his teeth, and went to bed with the hero that talked and acted with the swagger of Sergeant Cyples. Salt air blew in through the vents from the soaring ventilators above, and the steady hum of machinery and distant horns, bells, and seagulls made his eyelids heavy. When he switched off the reading lamp, the door curtain was outlined in a faint glow from the hallway. The stuffed pillows smelled of hyacinth, and the bunk was firm and warm. The white sheet caressed his chin and protected it from the red wool blanket. A few antic visions leapt through his fading consciousness, and then sleep spun its web and MacQueen plummeted into its dark embrace.

  27

  During the night, the CNS Lady Hawkins slipped out of fog-shrouded Halifax, through the anti-submarine net, and into the dark north Atlantic. Fort Sandwich stood invisible and vigilant to starboard, and the Sambro lightship gave bearings to port. A southeasterly gale was blowing, and the ship’s prow plowed into the waves as she altered course to round the Bay of Fundy and head for Boston. Not a light was visible, and radio silence was maintained; she sailed alone and without escort. Canada’s few destroyers and corvettes were needed on other routes, and the Lady Boat’s “full steam ahead” was faster than any submarine. If a U-boat was athwart her path, lifeboats were ready for emergencies.

  The sounds of the bells in the engine room and the powerful surge of the motors reached MacQueen’s subconscious and stayed there. The association was obvious, and he dreamed of Jim Hawkins setting sail for Hispaniola and the Spanish Main. In his dream, the pulleys creaked and the canvass sails filled with wind off the coast of Dover. Long John Silver looked like Sergeant Cyples with a patch on one eye, and the good doctor was, of course, his father. As the Lady plunged and shuddered in the heavy ocean and the bunk tilted forwards and backwards, MacQueen’s centre of gravity kept shifting in his sleep, and Bill Cyples’ macaw fluttered its wings and crowed, “Pieces of eight…pieces of eight…” He had a cutlass belted around his waist and a large flintlock pistol stuck into a cummerbund. He was holding onto a rope stay and grinning. His face zoomed into MacQueen’s consciousness—and Patrick sat up with a start. He didn’t know where he was, and his arm hurt. He was almost tossed out of the bunk.

  The cabin was heaving around him, his shaving kit was scattered on the deck, and he had to go to the toilet. “Damn that beer,” he thought, and jammed himself into the little head. The door slammed behind him; he peed on his bare feet. He clutched the wooden bar to finish then returned to the cabin. A leather chair was chained to the deck, and he washed his feet from the sink. It all tilted suddenly, and shuddered. MacQueen groaned and dragged himself back to the bunk. He was soon asleep again, but his dreams became more apocalyptic.

  Before the war, each of the Lady Boats had provided every first-class passenger with a little booklet engraved with the house flag of a blue pennant and a white-and-red cross and a maple leaf. The booklet had contained the names and destinations of all of one’s fellow passengers. For security reasons this was now discontinued, and one only knew of one’s companions what they cared to divulge. Bermuda had become the centre of a vast British Empire censorship establishment, and it drew its multilingual staff from every part of the globe. The tourist industry was zero in 1941, so they had taken over the entire Princess Hotel in Hamilton.

  The largest employer on the islands was the US government. In theory they were working with the Bermudian colonial government, but actually doing as they pleased. The Americans were building military bases, naval bases, and air bases. Though still officially neutral, someone in Washington was wise enough to see that Britain could not go it alone. If Adolf Hitler’s plan to conquer Britain, “Operation Sea Lion”, was successful, then Fortress America would need all the outlying bases possible. There was a very tenuous air link from Lisbon to the Azores to Bermuda, and then to New York. This was highly undependable, and Lisbon was a cesspool of intrigue. By process of elimination that left the ocean to consider. The British West Indies Squadron was required elsewhere, so the neutral Americans had assumed the job with bulldozers, Jeeps, and all the rest of the paraphernalia of Uncle Sam. The native Bermudians liked the Yankee dollar but didn’t much care for the bearers of this largess. Naturally, the base workers were vastly overpaid, and went about corrupting everything and everybody in sight. It was a painful time for His Majesty’s colonial pillars of empire. Complaints to Whitehall received the cryptic reply, “There’s a war on.” The fortunes of the merchant families did not suffer, and somehow they managed to import luxury items throughout the war.

  The Winnipeg Grenadiers had assumed the garrisoning of the islands as a sop to empire pride, and they trudged dutifully on guard and ceremonial duties. The Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps was also activated, to guard water tanks and the new wireless station. The governor’s staff was entirely British, and he appointed the colonial secretary to run the show. Three-quarters of the population was black, from St. Kitts and other islands to the south. They had no say in things whatsoever. There were also some Portuguese farmers from the Azores.

  MacQueen felt like a dice in a dice box until the Lady Hawkins entered the more shelt
ered waters off Cape Cod and began its run into foggy Boston Harbour. He had tried to be sick, but nothing came up, except a burning brine in his throat. The steward had brought a tray of toast and tea, with a glass of metallic-tasting orange juice.

  “Never seen anything like this!” he exclaimed, balancing the tray expertly, and placing it on MacQueen’s lap. The slices of toast were halved and buttered, each in a slot of its own in a silver rack, with a folded napkin to keep them warm. The tray was carved in notches to secure the utensils, and the silver teapot sported the engraved house flag of the Canadian National Steamships.

  MacQueen dubiously nibbled a piece of toast. “That’s what you fellows always say,” he answered. “Don’t you ever get sick?”

  The steward had been born in Plymouth and had been at sea for practically his entire life. He laughed. “I get sicker ashore from that lousy rum they serve,” he said with a laugh. “D’you want a bit of fresh air? We can open the scuttle, but you might get wet.”

  “No, I’m all right,” said MacQueen, tasting the tea. It was from Ceylon, strong and invigorating. “Many passengers this trip?”

  “Crikey,” answered the steward. “Only you and six ferry pilots. They fly bombers up, from somewhere to somewhere, and deliver them to the Brits. There will be more at Boston—all those Yanks building the bases keep moving around. Probably a few others. Who knows what they do these days?”